F2: Wings of the Fairy
by Lancel
Summary: Sheryl Nome lived to see the happy ending she fought so hard to get for Frontier in what should have been her last act. Now, after the end, though the memories yet linger, she has her whole life ahead of her, and new wings with which to fly.
1. Ep1p1: STANDBY

_**Departures, Alameda Spacy Base**_  
><em><strong> Alameda, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 0927, 23 November 2059<strong>_

"Alto!" With a wave of her arm a young woman named Sheryl Nome called out across a sunlit hall to a man with tied-up long, blue hair wearing a flight suit. He came to her readily with a gentle smile. Panoramic windows bathe the scene in a white late morning light and the vision of a clear, blue sky.

"You came," the young man said softly. His amber eyes met her blue.

"Silly Alto. That much is obvious," Sheryl smiled and took off her wide-brimmed hat to allow the sun to illuminate her long, strawberry-blonde hair.

"I'm just surprised is all, after everything you said about being busy all day today I wasn't sure you would make it. Ranka has already come and gone."

"I know, but really, I'm Sheryl Nome, I know how to work these things into my schedule," she said defiantly, then her voice softened and she started smiling all the more, "Besides, I didn't want to miss you off."

Alto returned the smile. "You know I won't be gone long. It's just a babysitting mission. The survey group will only be out there a few weeks."

Sheryl shrugged, "It was no trouble. After all, I certainly wasn't going to forget about today." She paused as she assumed a more indignant tone, "Even though it seems a certain _princ_-" Sheryl's voice froze as Alto pulled out a moderately-sized jewelry case clad with blue velvet and a stick-on ribbon bow. A blush spread across Sheryl's cheeks and her eyes turned from the box to Alto's eyes with a smile, "You didn't forget."

"That much is obvious," Alto quoted cheekily, "Happy birthday, Sheryl."

Sheryl timidly took the box and slowly opened it, and nearly dropped it when she gasped in surprise at its contents. Inside was a silver, tear drop shaped earring with an elongated purple gem dangling inside the charm's loop. A ruby flashed above, set in a cage of silver as an intermediary link between the jade stud of the french hoop and the charm. Sheryl's free hand darted to her right ear where dangled an earring identical to the one she held but for a sky-colored sapphire instead of a ruby. "Alto..." Sheryl looked up to his eyes, mouth slightly agape from the stunning gift.

"It just got to me twenty minutes ago, finally. I wanted to give it to you before I left, but it took a lot longer than I expected to find the right hunk of fold quartz for it. I hope you don't mind I had it set with a ruby, I thought it would help tell it apart from the original. I know it probably won't be able to replace the one I lost..." Alto went on as tears of joy came to Sheryl's eyes, but he had looked away.

"It's perfect," Sheryl told him, and she meant every word.

Alto turned his gaze back to her with a smile of relief, and they shared a silent moment together, staring into the other's eyes until finally Alto said, "Well, here." He took the earring out of its case and swept her hair back behind her left ear. Sheryl gave a small laugh as he slipped the cool metal of the french hoop into her pierced ear, finding it just a slight ticklish with Alto doing it.

"How does it look?" Sheryl asked as she held her head high and gave him a smile.

Alto shrugged in his uncertain attempt to judge, "You look... good, I suppose."

"Fool Alto, that's not at all how you tell a woman how she looks," Sheryl said with a playful tone. "Thank you."

Alto smiled as the last call for boarding sounded from down the hall. Sheryl sighed and they looked at each other for a long and quiet moment.

"I have to get going," Alto said finally.

"Alto..." Sheryl started, just to keep his attention. She reached up and took her right earring off, the original with the inset sapphire. "Make sure you bring this one back to me." Alto smiled knowingly and tilted his head to let her put the earring in his own pierced ear. "You brought it back once at least, so I expect you to do so again." Sheryl stood back and admired the earring for a moment, then she shrugged in an aloof manner, "I suppose you look good with it."

Alto shook his head with a scoff, "At least that means I'm not a wom-" And Sheryl suddenly threw her arms around him. Alto hesitated in his surprise, but ended up smiling and embracing her in return. They lingered there in silence with her cheek pressed firmly to his shoulder.

"I wish we could stay like this," Sheryl whispered as her arms tightened. Alto could only whisper her name in response. They came apart, and held hands for a moment while they gave one last look into each other's eyes.

And then he pulled away. Sheryl watched him walk away from her and she remembered a time when she knew she would never see him again. At the threshold he turned, their gazes met, and the earring gave a purple glint in the bright sunlight. He snapped a sharp salute to Sheryl, and Sheryl smiled in amusement and returned the gesture in a casual fashion. He crossed the threshold.

Sheryl watched the starry night sky from a wind-swept, grassy hill, still wishing they could have stayed like that forever. Somewhere up in that diamond crevasse was her Alto, either on the _Macross Quarter _or sortieing out in his Valkyrie, while down on the ground Sheryl could only stand and sing to the stars with her single earring sparkling in the moonlight far, far from him.

It was all she could do.

She clings to a sheet of paper, wrinkled from her grip and the wind that threatened to pull it from her grasp. Printed upon it was a transfer request bearing the seal of Mihoshi Academy from a Space Flight concentration to an Entertainment Arts concentration, written out for Sheryl Nome by Sheryl Nome's own hand. There were three signatures, one for each department head and one for the Dean of Academic Affairs. There was a fourth line, however, for the student, empty and waiting for Sheryl to put her distinctive signature down and make it official. Despite all sense telling her to sign it, she hadn't been able to do so yet.

"Sheryl..." Alto's voice said upon the same hill, but daylight now with the winds just as high. It seemed so long ago, and yet her own trepidation was as real as it had been all those months ago. "I uhh... I brought your earring back."

Sheryl smiled as she struggled to keep herself from crying, "Well it's about time you did something right, eh?" He held the earring out for her, and yet Sheryl couldn't quite bring herself to take it. "So, it's all over?"

"Yeah, mission accomplished and I..." Alto's voice hung suddenly. "And I made you a promise."

Sheryl's head turned sharply away from him, but she smiled as much as she could. She was happy, so happy she could have wept openly on the spot. It took all of her willpower to prevent it. "You don't have to say anything, Alto. It's a new world, a new life, and it's full of possibilities for you and Ranka... and..." She choked on the words.

"Sheryl..." Alto said solemnly, his face falling, "I'm not going to let you go alone."

"I'm not going, Alto, not anymore," Sheryl said as a tear fell down her cheek. She could no longer contain it. "I thought you would have recognized that by now. Alto..." she turned back to him with a tear-stricken smile, "I'm going to live."

Sheryl shot awake suddenly. A turmoil of emotion and memory ebbed away slowly along with the dreams. She faced a momentary dizziness, but it was replaced promptly with conscious awareness of the darkened room, an odd shortness of breath in her lungs, and an alarm clock blaring for attention and flashing 0600.

She slapped it with groggy annoyance and sat up. Her hands ran through her hair and brushed against her two earrings dangling from her ears. She had fallen asleep with them on again. She once again made a mental note to stop doing that, she worried that one night she might accidentally pull one of them out and lose it or hurt her ear.

The vivid dreams of her past soon faded into memories left to return to the corner of her mind where they resided, and as they did they left only the Sheryl of the present, an eighteen year-old woman and semi-former idol singer living in a penthouse on the south side of Island One. As a singer, she hadn't worked seriously on any new material in months, and she only did the occasional show when she could spare time from her studies at Mihoshi Academy, and even then most of her shows were for charity. She took only a small amount of the proceeds to cover her bills and living expenses for a short while.

She tapped the bedside lamp on and glanced at a nearby chair, where lay a school dress uniform and skirt of blue and white. She stared at it a while as if she couldn't believe it was still there, but she accepted it gratefully and rose from the bed.

She walked into the adjoined washroom, smacked the light switch, and ran water from the sink to splash at her face. Afterward, she looked at herself in the mirror, almost giving a chuckle when she saw how hellish she looked. Puffy eyes, a flushed face, messy hair, red marks on her skin from sleeping awkwardly, and a ratty old tank top she suspected had been one of Alto's all contributed to a view of Sheryl Nome in the wild. In scarcely an hour she'd be out the door confident she looked drop-dead gorgeous and ready to take on the world, and she knew that today she needed to be. She turned to the Sheryl Nome swimsuit calendar tacked haphazardly to the near wall by the light switch and followed the trail of _X_es leading to the 27th of February, a date circled in pink.

Sheryl took a deep breath and gave herself a smile in the mirror. "Well, Sheryl, today is your big day."

* * *

><p><em>It is the year 2060 AD, and mankind has spread across half a galaxy in an unending quest to colonize what few habitable worlds remain after hundreds of thousands of years of war between two great factions. One of these, the Supervision Army, is believed to have been annihilated by their rivals, the Zentradi, a race of giant humanoids bred by an ancient and now extinct race for one purpose only: to fight, a race who knew only war. They roamed the galaxy in great fleets of millions of ships in a semblance of a warrior tribal society, endlessly performing their final orders to search for and destroy every last vestige of the Supervision Army. A chance encounter with the Humanity of Earth led to the rebirth of civilian culture within their people, inspired by one young, aspiring singer, but it was not before the first Space War nearly exterminated the human race through an orbital bombardment that razed the surface of Earth and killed all but a few million people.<em>

_ Having come so near to extinction, the people of Earth began a massive cloning effort using genetic archives and overtechnology to repopulate the species and launch all of them in great colony fleets into the void of space to seek habitable worlds in order to avoid the possibility of total extinction by another such disaster. Some of these fleets are never heard from again, but others succeed, forging thriving new worlds to rival the reborn Earth._

_ The 25__th__ Long Range Colonization Fleet, __**Macross Frontier**__, was one such fleet to succeed. Having journeyed across the stars for decades, Frontier faced a race of hive-like, space-faring aliens known as the Vajra in war. The fleet only survived the conflict when a method of communication and understanding between the two sides was finally reached. With the fleet ecologically crippled by the war, the Vajra allowed Frontier to colonize their ancestral homeworld near the Galactic Core while they themselves continued their long migrations across the stars as they have done so for millions of years._

_ Now, the world of New Frontier seeks to forge a successful colony with limited resources. Its military, all but destroyed by the war, is the only thing that stands between the people of the colony and whatever threats may lurk in the uncharted reaches of the Galactic Core._

_**~ F2 START ~**  
><em>


	2. Ep1p2: STARTUP

_**F2: Wings of the Fairy, Episode 1 – Afterschool Overflow**_

_**The Lee's Apartment**_  
><em><strong> San Francisco, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 0754, 27 February 2060<strong>_

"RANKA!" a rough voice shouted from beyond Ranka Lee's closed eyes, "What the hell are you doing_?_!"

The green-haired sixteen year-old stirred from the calm of sleep and rose to a sitting position, "_Nani_? Ozma-_nii_?"

She found the rugged and angry face of Ozma Lee stuck in through the doorway to her room. Technically he was her adoptive guardian, but she'd always looked up to him as an older brother. He was roughly eleven years older than she was. His manly face and plain brown hair looked so out of place amidst her bright and decidedly girlified room. Even her bed was covered in squishy things and pillows of various shapes and sizes. "It's almost Oh-Eight-Hundred, missy! Your ride is going to be here any minute and you're still in bed! Now get the hell up before I go drill sergeant on your ass!"

"Huh?" Ranka grabbed a squishy, gelatinous form from the bedside table, which was actually a novelty smart phone that resembled something of a cross between a slug and a bill-less platypus. She squeezed it once and on its stomach it illuminated the time, and sure enough she should have been up nearly an hour ago. "Aie!" She bolted from the bed, the squishy phone proving its worth as it plops unharmed to the floor.

Ranka rushed through her daily routine and cut corners where she could afford. As she cut off Ozma to the bathroom she shouted, "Sheryl-_san _is going to be so mad at me!" She vaguely heard Ozma curse as the bathroom door slammed in his face.

Barely fifteen minutes later, Ranka was rushing to the door and struggling with her backpack while her bob cut hair shook itself dry of its own accord. "Ranka!" the hoarse voice of her brother stopped her, "I have prepared breakfast. You should eat before you leave."

Ranka paused in shock, only now noticing that her brother was standing in the kitchen and uncharacteristically holding a whisk and frying pan over a lit stove. Her first thought was that it was a sweet gesture as she had always made breakfast for them. Her second thought was a reminder that she always made breakfast herself for very good reason. She leaned over the counter to look at the result of her brother's attempt at cooking and visibly winced in spite of her attempt to cover it up with a smile. "That's okay, _nii-chan_! Sherylwill be waiting for me, it's her big day. But thanks anyway!"

Ozma frowned at her, but let her go without further ado, and Ranka rushed out the door, slamming it with as much force as she had the bathroom door. Hesitantly, Ozma Lee took a bite of his own cooking. "Damn. This wasn't half bad either."

Seconds later, Ranka barreled out of the front door of the apartment building, nearly tumbling down the stairs and into the street from her momentum. She turned on her heel and rushed down the street past a line of parallel parked cars to where a familiar and feminine figure leaned against an expensive red sports car, her strawberry-blonde hair glowing under the sun as if it had pink highlights. She was dressed the same as Ranka, clad in a button down short-sleeve shirt, skirt, long stockings, and black shoes, the girl's uniform for Mihoshi Academy. The only difference was the color scheme: orange and brown for Ranka, which marked her as part of the entertainment arts program, and blue and white for the woman, which denoted the aerospace program.

The woman was, of course, Sheryl Nome, a woman who had once been Ranka's idol and role model, and was now one of her best friends and a rival in stardom among other things. They had been through a lot together, and Ranka always thought Sheryl had suffered more for it, but despite it all Sheryl was still beautiful, strong-willed, and hard-working. Nothing phased her. If anything she had become a better person for it, and that was all part of why Ranka admired her.

Sometimes though Sheryl's actions and motivations escaped her, and some of them lately had her quite confused. For one, Sheryl was still in the aerospace program trying to become a pilot. She hadn't come out with any new music since she performed a duet with her on the _Lion_ single. She hadn't even released _Fairy_ yet, despite Ranka telling her it was one of her best songs. Sheryl was still a great songwriter, both _Lion_ and its B-side _Northern Cross_ topped the charts, but Sheryl just hadn't finished anything since the end of the war. There were pages and pages of lyrical and musical notes Sheryl had scribbled out when she hit some inspiration that still hadn't been finished, and that just wasn't like her. Sheryl finishes what she starts.

As Ranka ran toward her, Sheryl turned and smiled at her from under the rim of her oversized sunglasses. "Ah, there you are, Ranka_-chan_." The Japanese honorific suffix _-chan _Sheryl always used when referring to Ranka, yet curiously enough Sheryl never used it nor any other suffix with anyone else. Just Ranka. She had once asked Sheryl about this, but the only answer delved into how Ranka always used those honorifics with people and how originally Sheryl thought Ranka might find it insulting if she didn't apply one, and she had noted that most of Ranka's friends called her Ranka_-chan _so it just sort of stuck.

"Sorry! I'm so sorry I'm late, Sheryl_-san,_" Ranka panted as she came to a stop in front of the taller woman, leaning on her knees as she regained her breath.

"No worries, Ranka-_chan_!" Sheryl replied with an upwards tinge to her vocal pitch. The smile on her face belied much of why Sheryl Nome was also known as the Galactic Fairy. It was _mischievous_, and Ranka recognized this. Meanwhile, Sheryl circled around the car, opened the door, and slid into the driver's seat of her hardtop convertible. Ranka looked at it as an expensive sports car, though Sheryl once told her it was technically a "GT", whatever that meant. It was nevertheless one of the few great luxuries Sheryl permitted herself these days, but then, the car was a carryover, bought outright with cash two years ago on Galaxy and shipped around with her on her Galaxy Crossing Tour. Legend had it the car had driven on more scenic byways and planets than any other car that had ever existed, and if the stories were true, Sheryl had practically stolen it off the lot with a bat of her eyelashes.

Ranka herself climbed into the passenger seat carefully and buckled herself in. She was always a little scared to touch anything in Sheryl's car. It all looked so expensive. Ranka also knew that Sheryl had torn out the entire sound system that came with the car and replaced it with a custom built stereo and sound proofing she designed herself. She had done a good job of it too, the sound quality was on par with Ranka's favorite studio, though the space was a little confined for it. Sheryl had clearly picked up a lot from her singing career. Ranka couldn't help but wonder if that had now become Sheryl's _former_ career.

"You're not worried?" Ranka finally dared to ask, "Aren't we going to be late?"

As she turned the key and the throaty roar of the big block engine filled the cabin, Sheryl's mischievous smile turned into an outright wicked smirk, "Naaah."

Sheryl threw the stick into first gear and mashed the accelerator with her right foot while her left let out the clutch sharply. The launch threw Ranka back in her seat hard. Ranka screamed, but her sound was drowned out by the engine roaring, the tires screeching, and the rock music of Fire Bomber blasting over the stereo.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Student Parking Lot, Mihoshi Academy<strong>_  
><em><strong> San Francisco, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 0830<strong>_

Though Fire Bomber had started the drive, it was _Universal Bunny_, one of Sheryl Nome's own songs, that ended it. Sheryl had sung along with it. She had always been a little eccentric. If Ranka weren't so busy flinching at every turn taken way too fast she would have had time to fascinate at how Sheryl sang the song just a little differently now than she had in the original recording.

Outside in the parking lot, Sheryl clicked her key with an elaborate hand wave and the car chirped back at her contentedly and locked itself. Sheryl's fairy smile still covered her face. "See?" the Galactic Fairy said, "Right on time."

Ranka looked out across the enormous parking lot at the academy's glass-lined main building far away at the opposite end. Sheryl had parked at the very back again, away from all the other cars. "It's a long walk," Ranka pointed out.

"Lively walks are healthy for aspiring young singers and pilots alike," Sheryl said simply as she started to walk across the parking lot with a spring in her step Ranka followed along nervously. "You're awfully quiet today," Sheryl remarked suddenly.

"I'm just worried," Ranka answered. She felt Sheryl's bright blue eyes turn toward her, despite the sunglasses covering her eyes.

"Oh don't worry, Ranka-_chan_, I'm sure you'll do fine. It's not like you're graduating, you're just proceeding to Senior year." Sheryl had completely missed the point of Ranka's worry.

"It's not that, Sheryl-_chan_..." Ranka said softly. She felt those blue eyes peer at her even more closely. Ranka rarely used a more personal suffix than _-san_ with Sheryl's name. Ranka had always felt a little inferior in the presence of the Galactic Fairy, and after a year of knowing her it just sort of became habit. She only ever used _-chan _with her when it was something serious. "I'm worried about you. I know you've been planning this day for weeks, but you're still basically a Freshman as far as pilot training goes."

Sheryl's academic status was a somewhat complicated matter, due to a number of transfers. Her old manager, Grace O'Connor, had provided Mihoshi with records which qualified her as a Senior in the entertainment arts program, but her subsequent switch over to the aerospace program, with its vastly different requirements which traded literature and the arts for a rigorous course of physics and mathematics, technically dropped her all the way back to Sophomore, and even that was pushing it given the large number of requirements for the program, especially the military concentration. The Dean had done her a favor by letting her be counted as a Sophomore, it helped her get the classes she needed so she could be on course for an earlier than usual graduation.

But regardless of that, Sheryl brushed aside the concern heedlessly, "I have combat flight time, that's more than most of them can say."

"Twenty-nine seconds, Sheryl-_san_!" Worry clouded Ranka's voice as she looked suddenly at her startled friend. "You were shot down!"

Sheryl grimaced briefly, "Well when you put it _that_ way..."

"I just don't want to see you get hurt doing something..." Ranka shifted her gaze down to the concrete, seeking purchase for words that wouldn't infuriate the sometimes tsundere Sheryl Nome, "... you'll regret." When she didn't appear to get upset at that, Ranka continued, "I mean you could always wait and do it next year, when you have more experience."

Sheryl shook her head, "I _will_ regret it if I don't do it this year. It just..." There was hesitation in her voice, "... wouldn't be the same." She finished, as if she hadn't intended to say it that vaguely, but Ranka had a guess at what she meant, and it made her smile distantly.

"If you're going to regret it, then give it your all and be successful," Ranka said softly.

Sheryl gave her a curious look, "That was awfully deep of you. Where did you hear that?"

Ranka gave a small giggle, "Just something my brother used to always say."

They at last reached the doors and funneled into the hustle of students as they flit about from room to locker and locker to room in the traditional chaos that came before classes. Sheryl and Ranka paused at a fork in the hall, one way leading to Ranka's class, the other leading to Sheryl's own.

"I guess there's no way to talk you out of it, is there?" Ranka asked.

"Not a chance," Sheryl said confidently.

Ranka smiled. She always found Sheryl's confidence somehow inspiring. At a tangent, she toyed with writing a song about it one day. "Well, good luck, Sheryl-_san_! Break a leg!" Ranka turned and hurried off to her own classes, but after a second thought she turned and shouted back, "Better yet, _don't_!"

At least that made Sheryl laugh.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Classroom 405, Mihoshi Academy<strong>_  
><em><strong> San Francisco, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 0837<strong>_

Alto Saotome carefully examined his latest paper airplane, this one manufactured from one of the uncrumpled sheets of discarded printer paper, in his seat at the back of the room closest the window. He leaned back in his chair, foot propped on the desk to give him a comfortable gaze angled skyward. He set his plane to the backdrop of this window, giving it a background of the bright blue sky for him to gaze upon. With his back turned to the door and the general noise around he was without perception of what might come, such as a chair rolling into his own with a crash that startled him out of his daydream which was by itself enough to cause severe irritation in the veteran pilot. Alto turned on the offender, "Can't you watch where you roll that-?"

"Hello, Alto." The devilishly smiling face of Sheryl Nome greeted his gaze. The fairy was seated straight in her chair with her legs crossed in a pose that was somehow suggestive and innocent at the same time. Her bright blue eyes stared straight into his, smug with her seat wedged into his pinning it firmly between her's and the wall.

"Sh- Sheryl." He was unable to combat the red coming to his face as his eyes fell over her figure for a moment before he caught himself. He struggled to straighten his chair out to no avail. It refused to budge.

"Big day, hmm?" her velvety voice asked as she batted her thick eyelashes at him.

Alto was quick to straighten the way he sat and regain his indignant composure. His past in acting worked to his advantage. "It's not a big deal. I already know what they do for the Finals and it'll be easy."

"You're not worried at all?" she inquired with interest. Her own composure didn't change.

"Why should I be? It's just flight protocol, controls, and maneuvers."

"What about military? You have a military concentration now, right?"

"Are you kidding?" Alto said indignantly. "You _know_ how many medals they pinned to my chest after the Vajra conflict. Hell, you pinned a couple of them on yourself." Sheryl gave a small chuckle in reply. Alto continued, "Anyway, what about you? Sophomore isn't that tough, but you started kind of late with the program."

"Well," Sheryl's gaze broke away from his now that the conversation had turned toward her, "I don't expect it to be easy at all, but I think I'm ready for it."

Alto nodded, "Good. Just don't go and wreck an EX-Gear and half the windows in the building this time."

"Is no one ever going to let me live that down?" Sheryl pouted.

"Probably not."

"Damn." Sheryl muttered. Suddenly, she turned back to him, her smile once again bright, "Hey, why don't we go have dinner together when this is all over to celebrate?"

"You're asking me?" Alto countered skeptically.

"Of course, why would I ask someone else?"

"But you're _asking _me, you never _ask_ me these things, you always just drag me around whenever you feel like."

Sheryl turned her nose up, "Consider it a special service. You know I don't-"

"-do this kind of service very often, I know," Alto finished for her flatly. He made her wait a moment before he finally gave a small shrug. "Alright, I suppose we could."

Sheryl smiled. "Promise?" she asked with a prod to his shoulder.

"Promise," Alto said halfheartedly but with a small smile. It was enough to appease the fey creature beside him, and she scooted her chair away to free him from her pinning presence. Alto straightened his own chair out as the professor walked in as if on cue.

Professor James Harrison was a short and slightly rotund man, balding in the temples and graying in what hair he had left. His beady eyes were nonetheless cheerful, with a practiced smile that stayed put even under the harshest conditions, at least when in the presence of students. He wore a brown business suit, as always. Alto always imagined the professor's wardrobe as consisting of dozens of those suits, all exactly the same and without the slightest variation, or perhaps just five with a regularly scheduled Saturday dry cleaning. Or seven, for he needed to wear one for Saturday and Sunday, but then if he wore one on Saturday he could not very well get it dry cleaned, and what would he wear next Saturday? Surely not a suit he already wore. Thus it was only logical that Professor Harrison owned exactly eight suits. Of course it was even more logical to say that Alto had spent far too much time thinking about this boredly in class over the years, but thankfully this would be the end of that.

"Good morning, students!" the professor called out in the same chipper tone Alto had endured for four years. "Today is the last day of the academic year. For some of you, this marks the end of your time here at Mihoshi..." the Professor dabbed at his eyes. The man always got teary when this day came around. "You all have your schedules, you all know what to do, so there's not really anything for me to announce..." he choked, breaking down into tears, "I am sorry, I always get teary at this day." Old news, even the freshmen had been warned. "For some of you this is the last time I will be able to address you this way. You won't be returning next semester, and that thought always brings me to tears..."

The man choked and strangled on a sob, but from the back of the room, right next to Alto, the chipper voice of Sheryl Nome suddenly interjected, "I'll still be here next semester!"

Alto sincerely felt that only made the man cry harder.

* * *

><p><em><strong> Mihoshi Academy Drill Field<strong>_  
><em><strong> San Francisco, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 0927<strong>_

Only a short while later Alto Saotome stood in a line along with the other Seniors, only vaguely at attention while he awaited the officers and professors to arrive. It was the last step in his academic career, and he admitted Sheryl was right, he was a little excited, but it was still going to be a breeze, more a victory lap than a challenge.

"Good morning, Alto_-senpai_," came the young voice of his compatriot, Luca Angelloni. He glanced over at the much shorter young man. He looked as if he had never known puberty, but despite that Alto reminded himself that Luca was only a year younger than he.

"Morning, Luca," Alto replied simply. "What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you had another year."

"I completed all the required courses ahead of schedule, I'm graduating a year early. I never told you?"

"You never breathed a word of it."

"Oh," Luca shrugged, "I suppose there were always more important things."

"I suppose so," Alto shrugged himself. Luca flew in Alto's squadron in a recon VF-25, all decked out in advanced communications, sensor gear, and a radome like a miniature AWACS. How he could stand the maneuvering hit from the extra mass Alto never figured out. Luca had been with him the whole of the Vajra Conflict.

"Hello again, Alto!" a disturbingly familiar chipper voice suddenly called, and his head turned quickly to his other side in disbelief. He was even more shocked when he saw that his ears had not lied to him.

Sheryl Nome was standing next to him with her head held high and a bright smile that clearly meant trouble.

"What the-? Sheryl?"

"Sheryl_-sama_..." Luca said quietly, looking past Alto to the songstress in curiosity.

Alto's brow twitched, nervousness suddenly creeping into his voice, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I'm here to take the test!" Sheryl said as she brushed a hand through her hair by habit, her famous earring clinked gently as it fell back into place. "Obviously," she added with an indignant tone.

"Why?" Alto asked flatly.

"Well, because I'm Sheryl! Sheryl Nome!"

"Sheryl..." Alto gave an exasperated sigh, and put a hand on her shoulder, "I'm going to be blunt. This is the stupidest idea I've ever heard come past your lips."

"Hmph!" Sheryl kicked his hand off with a violent roll of her shoulder and with a frown, "You being the expert on stupid ideas."

Luca giggled. Alto sternly frowned back at Sheryl, "I'm serious, Sheryl. Get out of this line before the high-ups show. You're only going to make a fool of yourself or worse get yourself hurt. The military pilot final exam may be a cake walk for me, but it's still no pushover. It's not paintball either, they give you _live ammunition._ Freshmen and even Sophomores like you have nearly gotten themselves killed taking it early like this, and there's just no reason for it."

Sheryl crossed her arms, refusing to look Alto in the eye, "I've made up my mind."

"Seriously, what made up your mind to do this?" Alto shouted.

Luca chimed in, "Sheryl, students only take the test early to prove something. You don't have anything to prove..." Luca trailed off, getting more curious as the thought processes that got him this far worked it through, "Unless you do?"

Luca didn't get an answer in time. "TEN HUT!" shouted a voice from in front of them. Instantly the line stood at full attention with a snap of heels. Even the normally lazy Alto stood himself at full attention, but a frown persisted as Sheryl stubbornly continued to stand in the line.

Of the four men and three Zentradi standing before them, the familiar face of Drill Sergeant Garrison stepped forward, eying a clipboard which Alto knew contained the roster. Out of the side of his eye, Alto saw the man cast a glance in Sheryl's direction. "Hmm," Garrison murmured before speaking aloud again. He paced up and down the line as he spoke, "Maggots! This is the _Senior Military _Pilot Exam! It involves real birds, real ammo, and real _grit_! You_ will be tested _both mentally and physically without remorse or _pity_! If you do not feel _prepared_ for this, got _lost _on your way to the _Sophomore Pilot Exam_, or had a _really bad idea,_" Alto was certain this was aimed almost entirely at Sheryl by the way his voice raised when he purposefully turned in her direction, "Then _step away now_. There is no dishonor in this, but this _is _your _only_ chance to walk away. _Period!_ Past this point, you're stuck with whatever batshit insane Evel Knievel stunt we throw at you in what _will be_ six hours of _Hell_ in a _goddamn _hand basket!_ With streamers_."

The drill sergeant stood himself in front of the middle of the line again, ending his speech right on the spot of ground where he had begun it. He waited with remarkable patience, bouncing on his heels as he kept his eyes down at the roster, as if he were not paying attention to anyone, that anyone could have backed away now and gone unnoticed. "Last chance," the Sergeant said.

Yet Sheryl's feet were still firmly planted next to Alto without even so much as a flinch. The long wait started to make Alto feel embarrassed, and he knew the rest of the Seniors must feel the same way. They were all of them as confident in their abilities as they were irritated in that those very abilities appeared so questioned because of a crazy Sophomore. Alto couldn't restrain himself longer, he gave Sheryl a firm nudge with his elbow. He could feel Sheryl's eyes glare into him, and she nudged him back harder. Alto had to admit she seemed just as confident as the rest of them, but she clearly had half the intelligence.

Garrison's head shook subtly, and Alto detected what he could have sworn was a sigh, something he had never known the Sergeant to do. He was waiting an absurdly long time for this. At least another fifteen seconds must have passed before the Sergeant finally relented and made a note on his clipboard, "Alright then... Ladies and gentlemen, _salute _for Fleet General Malanius Krridgel."

Alto clicked his heels again and whipped his hand up in salute as the old Zentradi strode forward confidently. Alto gave a short look in his direction before turning his eyes forward again. The General was a large man of a proper genetically engineered ground soldier variety, at least six and a half feet tall, broadly shouldered, bald head. His uniform was decorated with too many medals for Alto to count, and the man's scars upon his pale and green-tinged skin did as much telling of his battle experience, notably in the case of the large, unadorned optical plate that had been put in place of his left eye and part of his skull. The man was clearly old, and Alto's experience with the Zentradi on Frontier told him that he easily predated the first Space War. He might even have been there. The General's gaze spoke of a hardened soldier, no hesitation as he observed the recruits arrayed before him.

"Greetings," the man said after a moment of suspense. Somehow his rough voice maintained an almost calming effect. There was another pause before he continued, "In recognition of the efforts of your..." he gave a nod toward the sergeant, "... excellent school, I have taken the opportunity to personally test and observe a small number of candidate pilots. Undoubtedly you did not expect this. Good. Consider it a real test of your abilities. Candidates with combat experience, step forward."

Luca and another down the row, Alto knew it to be Victor Dyson, stepped forward immediately, and Alto followed at his own pace as he thought to himself, _At least I won't have to watch Sheryl embarrass her_- Sheryl stepped forward. Alto shot her an angry glare as he swallowed back an infuriated growl. Sheryl didn't even bat him an eye.

The General meanwhile stepped in front of each candidate, the Sergeant in tow. The first was Victor. "Soldier. Name, rank, and combat experience."

"Sir! Ensign Victor G. Dyson, served with SMS in the Vajra Conflict flying VF-25As, continued service into NUNS absorption, sent to special task force Skull Squadron after the war and upgraded to a VF-25G for sniper duty. Seventeen confirmed kills, fourteen of which were Vajra."

The Sergeant nodded his affirmation. Krridgel asked again, "And the other three?"

"Rogue Zentradi after the war while on combat patrol, sir."

"Very good," the General walked forward to Luca. The General seemed particularly intrigued by the short, young man, and Luca's talk was long and arduous. Meanwhile, Garrison still walked along with the General, stepping behind him to survey down the line, briefly looking up from his data pad. Alto saw him do a double-take when he saw Sheryl had stepped forward, and for whatever reason the Sergeant started trying to get his attention when he got over the shock. Luca was still going on about his various combat sorties, and his complete lack of kills not gotten for him by his pet semi-autonomous drone fighters, known as Ghosts.

Alto looked over at the Sergeant and gave a slight shrug. The Sergeant mouthed something along the lines of "She's your girlfriend, get her the hell back." Alto's subtle shrug and his eyes were enough to tell the Sergeant that he'd already tried. Sheryl was being stubborn. Garrison rolled his eyes and started trying to signal Sheryl back, going all the way to a throat slit gesture as if the test would kill her. That actually did make Alto nervous, but Sheryl had made up her mind, it was useless to argue with her now. Stubborn woman. It was no use, and the Sergeant fell back in line in time to nod affirmation to the General to whatever he had just said.

Next was Alto. "Sir! Lieutenant J.G. Alto Saotome." Alto normally preferred to introduce himself last name first, but it would have been inappropriate in this context. "I served with SMS during the Vajra Conflict flying VF-25Fs as part of Skull Squadron and VF-171EXs as part of NUNS with Lieutenant Angelloni here. One hundred and nintey-three kills."

The General gave a small chortle, "And what did you use to get that kind of count? Reaction weapons?"

"Only on some of them, sir," Alto replied with a smirk.

The General gave an even heartier chuckle and moved on. His normal stride stopped short as he seemed almost to freeze with a look upon the face of the last person to step forward. "Just when you think you've seen most everything..." the General said, making Alto cringe, wondering if he was about to fall for Sheryl's pretty face. A quick glance to the General's skeptical face left Alto with relief. The old man was no fool.

Sheryl took a deep breath and spoke quickly. Her voice carried like any stage performer. "Sir, Cadet Sheryl Nome, sir! I served as a volunteer Culture Specialist on _Battle Frontier_ during the Vajra Conflict and flew a VF-25G during a major fleet engagement in the same conflict, sir!"

"She flew?" The General turned an intrigued glance to the Sergeant, who reluctantly answered.

"For twenty-nine seconds. She was shot down. There were extenuating circumstances."

"Explain."

"Well..." the Sergeant hesitated.

It was all the opening Sheryl needed, "Sir! I had just been evacuated from Galia Four in the RIO seat of that VF-25G. We were forced to piggy back on a Vajra Carrier's fold to escape the blast that destroyed the planet. In the turbulence, my pilot was knocked unconscious with visible head trauma. I had only basic training at the time, but seeing the clear and present danger we were in I attempted to fly us out of enemy air space to a nearby friendly ship while the battle was going on, sir!" Sheryl was really getting into this, Alto noted.

The General raised his one good brow toward Sheryl. "You took matters into your own hands. Commendable. Not many in your position would have done that," the General looked then to the Sergeant, who this time presented the General with the datapad. He looked it over.

"Your piloting scores are unimpressive, but show considerable improvement in the short time you've been with the program." Alto bit back a comment about how that was mostly because of the private flying lessons he'd been giving her these past months. "Good for a first year recruit, though I dare say you lack a natural talent for flying. Minor infractions in discipline and a few... _interesting_ incidents to say the least. Hmm..." he scanned another section before he spoke again, "Your teachers speak well of you. Even Master Sergeant Garrison gives you praise, despite his numerous attempts just now to dissuade you."

Alto saw the Sergeant grimace. Krridgel was more astute than he gave him credit for, and properly baited the Sergeant into clarifying his position,"I believe her to be a fine recruit, and it is because I believe this that I do not wish for her to take part in these tests. As you said, she doesn't have a natural knack for flying. It is my opinion that she will one day be ready for this if she keeps it up, but that day is not today."

Kriddgel turned back to Sheryl. "It seems you have little to prove to your instructors, Cadet Nome. I can only assume you have some other personal reason for this. I do not make a habit of asking personal questions, but for one exception... Why are you here?" The tone of his voice and inflection suggested that this was an open question and encompassed more than the context suggested. It was not a question aimed only at why she was there for the test, but one at one's course in life, almost as if asking for a summary of what brought her to this point.

Sheryl seemed to recognize this as well as Alto. "Because I have been in the face of danger and known what it is to feel helpless, and I have known what it is to feel useful. I like the latter feeling better."

Krridgel pondered that for a moment, then nodded, "Proving oneself to oneself."

"You give it your all and you know where you stand, and you keep giving it your all until you're standing where you want to be," Sheryl then hastily added a punctuational "Sir!"

The single eye of Fleet General Malanius Krridgel watched her in the eye, his gaze almost seeming to soften for an instant, a flicker of a smile crossing over his lips. "I agree," the General then nodded to Garrison, "She's in."

Alto could not contain his outburst, "_What?_"

And Alto knew what was coming the second he opened his mouth. Garrison shouted back, "_That's 'Sir, What, Sir', Saotome! Now secure that hatch!_" Garrison seemed just as shocked as Alto. The shout down was probably reflex by this point in Garrison's career.

Krridgel went on, "That makes four, a proper special forces squad." He began to pace the line, "You four will be flying VF-25s for this special testing, and you _will_ be airborne in fifteen minutes. Lieutenant Saotome, with your prior command experience you will be serving as wing commander and may fly either a VF-25S or, if you prefer, your assigned VF-25F. Similarly, Lieutenant Angelloni will be allowed to fly his VF-25R with his full Ghost retinue while Warrant Officer Dyson will fly his VF-25G. Cadet Nome will be provided with a VF-25F. All of you will be equipped with Super FAST Packs and live ammunition."

"Sir," Alto put forth his acting talents to mask his annoyance behind a poker face, "Our Valkyries and military issue EX-Gears are on the _Macross Quarter_, eleven kilometers away by road. How are we supposed to get airborne in only fifteen minutes?"

"An excellent question, Lieutenant Saotome, but you assume you will be going by road." As if on cue, the heavy thrum of military helicopter blades struck the ears of those around. Alto looked over his shoulder to see a transport helicopter flying low over the school in to land on the field. "Fortunately for you, I have chosen to provide you with some assistance for this part of the test," the aging General smirked.


	3. Ep1p3: READY

_**Bridge, **_**Macross Quarter**  
><em><strong>Landing Bay, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 0947<strong>_

"Hey, Monica, could you come here?"

The young, auburn-haired Monica Lang turned immediately to Ram's question. She looked up from a datapad and crossed the compact interior of the _Macross Quarter_'s bridge in barely half a dozen strides, passing by holographic displays under the daylight that streamed in from the panoramic view glass and skylight. "Something wrong?" Monica asked.

"Remember that training flight that got scheduled late yesterday? Well it has a pilot roster now," Ram said in her high-pitched and somewhat subdued voice voice, "But I think there must some kind of mistake."

Monica glanced over Ram's shoulder to her screen and sought out the offending bit of data as she asked, "What makes you think- _Sheryl Nome_?" Monica suddenly exclaimed in shock,"_Captain!_" Monica's head whipped over to the Captain's chair located to the port side, where sat the rugged veteran of a hundred conflicts and skipper of the _Macross Quarter_, Jeffrey Wilder. "Sheryl Nome has been cleared for a Valkyrie with _live ammunition_!"

The old sea dog cradled his morning cup of coffee close to his lips. He remained remarkably calm and commented simply, "Interesting."

"You aren't the least bit concerned?"

"Should I be?" he asked plainly.

"Yes! _Ack!_ I told you to watch that documentary on her post-war career! That thing was filmed just a month ago and she had enough trouble landing a _Nightmare Plus _on a one kilometer runway with no wind! She's not ready for this! Even if she does get out there how is she going to land a _Messiah _on our flight deck with a twenty _K-P-H _cross-wind?"

He shrugged and said in his rough voice, "If she's been cleared for it, then the concern is not mine."

"Alright, forgive me if I seem insubordinate, but what has you so aloof on this?"

"That would be me," a deep voice said from an elevator as its doors slid open with a hiss and it rose into the bridge.

Monica's pinning green eyes darted to the new arrival, a large, well-built, and old Zentradi. She quickly noticed the Spacy uniform and his incredible rank status as a Fleet General. She snapped a smart salute and felt herself blush in embarrassment from her outburst to her own Captain. Undoubtedly the General had overheard at least part of it. The rest of the deck rose at their own pace and saluted, even Wilder.

"Apologies, Captain, permission to enter the Bridge?" the General asked as a mere formality.

"For you, General Krridgel, always." Captain Wilder offered his hand, and the General shook it firmly.

"Are the preparations for the training flight complete?"

Wilder turned to Monica for the answer. Monica's formerly fierce voice had faded, struggling to keep it sounding respectable and not as a whimper. "Err, yes, sir, but permission to ask a question on the pilot roster, sir?"

"Granted," Krridgel obliged.

"Sir, why is Sheryl Nome on the roster? She's a greenhorn."

"She impressed me sufficiently. It is unusual to find one so eager and yet without arrogance. If your concern is for your Captain's reputation, however, you need not have it. For the record, I take full responsibility for everything that happens on this training flight."

Monica could not argue with that for two reasons, the first because of his greatly superior rank, the latter because it kept her Captain clean. Monica knew the General's reputation. If he were willing to stake it on Sheryl then either she was fine or, more than likely, if something bad did happen his reputation would hardly be tarnished anyway.

Wilder nodded, "Feel free to roam the bridge, General. Lieutenant Monica, if you would kindly assist the General in his observation. He is free to use any tool at our disposal."

"Yes, sir..." Monica consented, and motioned the General to the holographic tactical display.

"Excellent," Krridgel said, "Then let's get started."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Hangar Deck, <strong>_**Macross Quarter**  
><em><strong> Landing Bay, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 0951<strong>_

Sheryl Nome jogged out of the pilots' locker room, covered from neck to foot in a black and blue jump suit with a visored full-face helmet in hand. The warm smell of grease, oil, and sweat skirmished with her nostrils in spite of the substantial ventilation inside the giant hangar of gunmetal and steel. The deck was principally divided by two lines that demarcated a clear taxi fare between rows of Valkyries, the vast majority the swan-like shape of VF-25 Messiahs with their sleek and gentle curves. Many were simply standing by, ready to launch at a moment's notice, dressed in tan and light gray livery. Each had their wings swept back to conserve the premium real estate on the _Quarter_'s hangar deck. A few others were in maintenance areas in a mess of removed panels and exposed parts, marked off with yellow and black warning stripes.

Variable Fighters, popularly referred to as Valkyries, are transformable single-man aerospace fighters which served as the key tactical strike craft of the New UN Spacy. Armored like a tank, quick as lightning, and fitted with enough firepower to level several city blocks, Valkyries had long been the mainstay of the Spacy and had become the stuff of legend which many a small child looked up to with awe and wonder. There had been many designs over the years, some with different roles and capabilities from others, but all still held true to the same concepts introduced by the original variable fighter, the VF-0 Phoenix, to enable it to fully engage any foe in any situation and almost any environment. The default was fighter mode, which all the VF-25s on the deck were in now, a mode that closely resembled jet fighter craft from the late 20th century with two turbine engines mounted in the fuselage and intakes that flanked just behind the nose which contained the bubble canopy of the cockpit, and a long graceful wingspan with flaps and ailerons. Another was battroid mode, a heavy, close combat mode where the entire fighter would transform into a humanoid form four stories tall, enabling it to fight on the ground or in the streets of an urban sprawl. In between these two modes was GERWALK, where the legs containing the engines would be dropped and arms deployed, but the torso retains its fighter shape. Each mode had its strength. Fighter possessed speed and traditional dogfighting techniques, able to reach supersonic speeds in an atmosphere and accelerate the fastest of all modes. GERWALK possessed maneuverability, taking advantage of the extra range of motion in the legs while retaining wings to generate lift and air flow control to move gracefully in any direction with quick reaction times. And battroid possessed power, able to threaten every target in its immediate vicinity, unrestricted in the direction it can face or point its gun, and supported with extra power from the engines serving to increase the power of its Energy Conversion Armor.

The VF-25 Messiah was one of the newest variable fighter in the tradition, a fourth-generation, light-weight, swing-wing, multirole fighter with a long, swan-like nose and canted rudders, but no horizontal stabilizer in the traditional sense, that function was fulfilled by an aggressive thrust vectoring scheme from its twin engines and an inverted V-tail mounted opposite the rudders. The VF-25 was on course to replace the older VF-171 Nightmare Plus as the primary multirole variable fighter of the Frontier fleet, and potentially that of many other fleets if orders came through. As the first fourth-generation of variable fighters built for export, it included many new innovations over the original Valkyries, such as a pin-point barrier that could absorb incoming attacks and put extra force into melee, more powerful engines that could bring it to hypersonic speeds in an atmosphere, and finally, unique to the VF-25, the Inertial Capacitor and EX-Gear system which vastly improved the pilot's ability to tolerate high G-forces. The Inertial Capacitor proved to be so great an advantage that many Valkyries have since been retrofitted with the Inertial Capacitor and even the EX-Gear system ad hoc, as Valkyries without it had become almost obsolete.

The EX-Gear system itself was even something of an innovation, being more than a simple G and space suit. It was a light suit of powered armor, with wings and its own engines intended to serve as an ejection system for pilots. While light on the armor part, the EX-Gear enabled a pilot a range of maneuverability that was extremely valuable if ejecting over enemy territory, letting the pilot choose where to land, or even get back to friendly lines on their own while still airborne. In space, it prevented the pilot from being entirely helpless after ejecting.

There were other fourth-generation variable fighters out there, such as the VF-27 Lucifer and the VF-24 Evolution, but neither saw full public sale. The VF-27 had been exclusive to the Galaxy fleet, while the VF-24 Evolution saw its full version restricted only to Earth with a ridiculously stripped down export model made available to the other fleets. This export model was at best a 3.5-generation variable fighter and barely constituted an upgrade at all. Frontier based the VF-25 Messiah off the VF-24, and designed it as a fourth-generation fighter for export.

Sheryl could see Alto, Victor, and Luca already climbing ladders into their individual Valkyries. Luca's green VF-25 was the most distinctive with a massive radome covering its back. Victor's gunmetal VF-25G meanwhile sported an enormous Mecha-scale Sniper Rifle hardpointed to its stomach instead of the usual five barrel fifty-six millimeter Gatling gun pod. Alto's VF-25F was gleaming white with small black and red stripes as accents. Sheryl, though, did not know which Valkyrie was hers for the mission.

"Chief!" Sheryl called out to a familiar face among the maintenance crews, jogging to meet him. "Which Messiah is on the training flight today?"

"What? Sheryl?" Chief said as he turned from his toolbox, "It's that one right there." He pointed. "Why do you ask? What are you doing here anyway? Is Princess taking you up again?"

Sheryl's eyes immediately turned to where Chief had indicated with no small amount of excitement. There, resting aside in its spot was a shining VF-25F Messiah with a livery of sky blue with a white underside and navy blue vertical stabilizers and wing tips, all glinting under the hangar's florescent lights. The emblem of Strategic Military Services, a trinity of bronze hexagons each with a single stylized letter of its acronym, was painted in all the right places. A Super Pack had already been mounted, featuring two massive boosters pods attached over the wings with two independent vectoring nozzles each, as well as several extra panels of armor and missile packs all painted in a steel blue with red missile rack covers. Somehow it looked shinier than even Alto's bird, but that was probably just her excitement. Sheryl ran for it eagerly. "I'm on the mission!"

A loud bang from a shocked Chief, though Sheryl did not look back to see what exactly it was. He probably dropped a wrench. "_What?_! No! That Valkyrie is brand new! She's never even known the warmth of a pilot's body!"

Perhaps the added shine was not a product of her imagination, she considered. Sheryl did her best to ignore the Chief, despite the conjured imagery his statements brought. She slid on her heels to a halt in front of the ladder, then grabbed the rail and set a foot on the first step before she suddenly happened to notice the tail markings. She leaned back on the ladder to get a better look, and she froze there for a long second, then all of a sudden she turned angrily to the Chief, now on top of her after racing after her.

"S-M-S-Zero-_Twenty-Nine_?" Sheryl inquired with a growl. She had been on this hangar deck before, of course, often enough to know that they _all_ knew about her twenty-nine seconds of combat flight time. The Valkyrie she got blown up had been a part of this very ship's complement.

"It's a _complete _coincidence! I didn't even know it would be you!" Chief stammered and waved his hands, "I mean seriously, _you_?" He fiddled with his data pad to find any relevant bits of data.

Sheryl ascended the ladder. "Yes, me! Sheryl Nome!" She dropped herself into the cockpit and started looking over the controls. They were a bit different from the VF-171s she mostly trained with at Mihoshi, but Sheryl had the benefit of some familiarity with VF-25s from Alto taking her up in his.

"Great!" Chief moaned, then patted the beak of the fighter in sympathy, "This poor bird..."

"It's not dead, Chief," Sheryl said as she tried to run through her preflight checks quickly.

"Not _yet_!" he sighed, "You just make sure you bring her home! And I don't mean in pieces! We _just _finished putting her together, I don't want to have to put her together again! Or worse, scrap the poor girl."

Sheryl just shook her head at the overprotective Chief. The EX-Gear snapped around her, buckling her into the cockpit securely. As the Chief pulled the ladder away, he spoke again.

"Hey, Sheryl." Sheryl looked up from the controls to him. "You come back in one piece, too," he said begrudgingly.

Sheryl's shoulders relaxed slightly and she conceded with a small smile, "Thank you, Chief."

Sheryl put her helmet on and secured it, cutting the loud noise of the hangar deck down to a distant muffle. A hiss signaled pressurization, and Sheryl's ears popped as the internal pressure was gradually raised to military standard. The denser air served to further the G-suit's capabilities in reducing black out by oxygenating the blood more thoroughly to get more to the brain and also by pressing her blood into a slightly tighter area. The cockpit canopy closed with a hiss as well, pressurizing itself as well to reduce stress on the G-suit material and to add an extra buffer of air for the pilot in case of a suit puncture. If the cockpit itself were breached it had more capable systems for sealing the hole quickly.

STANDBY gently glowed in large letters from the VF-25's multifunction display. The multifunction display, or simply MFD, was a large touchscreen mounted front and center surrounded by a dozen or so hard switches. Sheryl started to run through preflight. The full suite was a complex affair with almost a hundred checks. Sheryl couldn't possibly remember the whole of it or even the short of it, she had to pull up the list on the display. She puzzled over each item, and reached to press one index finger to her lips subconsciously. Her finger merely bopped awkwardly against the helmet. Sheryl shook the pain out, wondering why she did that, then began fiddling with the side-stick controls while checking over her shoulder for movement in the ailerons. She was somewhere on the parking brakes in a slight panic as she noticed Alto's Valkyrie already taxiing to the lift when Alto finally opened a communication channel with her. His face appeared in a holographic window on the canopy to her left. "Sheryl, don't bother doing the entire checklist, it's a scramble, even if only an exercise."

"Chief said it's a new plane," Sheryl said. She wasn't certain if that really mattered, but she thought it should.

"Chief already ran the full preflight when he prepped this mission, just let it run the automated checks and start the engines."

Sheryl closed the text window with the preflight checklist, flipped on a few switches, and set her hands and feet in their proper positions on the throttle, stick, and vectored thrust pedals. The hum of the Reaction Turbines spinning up started low and grew higher in pitch as the display read STARTUP, then the HUD lit up soon after with a cycle of systems. Finally the deep voice of jet engines filled her cockpit. Sheryl shuddered pleasantly at the sound of the two engines, and the gentle vibrations that passed through the plane and slid across her skin.

She caught Alto smiling at her, then that she was smiling herself. He caught himself, too, and quickly looked away. She straightened her posture and got serious. READY flashed up on the MFD and Sheryl cleared her throat and made the announcement, "Sagittarius-Four ready to launch, sir."

Alto quickly returned to his no-nonsense demeanor and tone, "Good, now go easy on the throttle or you'll end up shooting that thing into a wall."

"I'll be careful," Sheryl said, frowning.

"And remember to check for the crew! You do _not_ touch that throttle unless you see all the crew where they should be!"

Alto's voice was harsh and just a bit annoying, but she had sort of expected it given the scenario, he the veteran, and she the rookie he'd been saddled with. She had to admit she was not all that unfamiliar with the tone. He readily expressed his disapproval and annoyance, always honest on expressing if he was being irritated or if he was just irritable. It was one of the traits she liked about him. She usually liked to counter by teasing him, but this was hardly the time for teasing. She had been given the best chance she could have hoped for, and she wasn't going to screw this up.

Sheryl checked for the maintenance crew, and they gave her the thumbs up. She pushed the throttle forward and let out a small cry as the Valkyrie threw her backward with more power than she expected, and she pulled the throttle back to zero almost immediately, but the Valkyrie had already jumped forward with an eager rumble. Scared that she might hit the planes and equipment and people on the other side, Sheryl jerked the stick to try to get it on the taxiway and winced as the bird spun quickly to the right with the grinding whine of rubber tires going sideways, the back right landing gear even lifted off the ground for a couple of seconds before she finally grabbed the brakes and forced the plane to a lurching stop. The back right landing gear met the deck with a gentle bounce. Pale and wide-eyed, she snapped out of her shock just enough to look around. The plane seemed no worse for wear, not so much her heart. The deck crew, meanwhile, had all dived for cover, heads poking out from behind tool carts, heavy loaders, and even ordnance racks of all things which were carrying no small amount of irony.

"What the hell did I just say about the throttle?" Alto shouted, and then he let out a breath as if she'd just given him the scare of his life.

Sheryl let out a breath herself as she felt her cheeks warm. This time she feathered the throttle as lightly as she could manage and followed Alto's plane to the lift.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Mihoshi Academy Roof and EX-Gear Runway<strong>_  
><em><strong> San Francisco, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 1156<strong>_

Ranka Lee sat out on the end of the long strip of Runway 02 jutting out from the main body of the academy like the deck of an aircraft carrier in miniature. A lunchbox sat near her filled with tuna buns and snacks from the Chinese Restaurant she used to work at, all of it barely touched as she looked across Island One lost in thought.

"Ranka_-chan_!" sprinting footsteps fell on Ranka's ears along with the call of her name. She recognized the voice immediately, turned and shouted in reply.

"Nana_-chan_!"

The tanned High Schooler Nanase came to a stop just shy of the twelve story drop fearlessly. She had purple hair tied up around the back of her head as usual, matching purple glasses, and a buxom frame that was every bit as curvy as Sheryl's, and in some ways even more so. The way she could run despite all that was nothing short of amazing to the comparatively straight-lined Ranka. Yet despite her body, Nanase never attracted nearly the attention Sheryl did. It was the glasses, Nanase would say, apparently they caused her to fall just below notice most of the time. She didn't even need glasses, she just wore them anyway.

"Aww, why the long face?" Ranka's long-time friend asked.

Ranka turned and looked up at the sky. "Sheryl_-san_ and Alto-_kun_ took off."

Nanase sighed and put a hand to her forehead, "Ranka-_chan_, I thought we got through all that. It's not healthy to be holding out this long. You've got to look at other options."

"It's not that!" Ranka clarified, suddenly feeling nervous, "I mean they took off in Valkyries for the Senior Year Final Test."

"Ohh! Sorry, I just-" Nanase stopped sharply and started again, "Wait, Sheryl went _with_ them to the Senior Year Final Test? In her own _Valkyrie_?"

Ranka nodded.

Nanase exploded in panic, "Is she nuts_?_! She's going to get shot down! Or crash! She might _die_! She might blow them both up! She might even somehow accidentally drop a reaction missile on-"

"Nanase!" Ranka shouted with a glare.

"Sorry..." Nanase apologized again, "Don't worry, Ranka-_chan_! I'm sure they'll be fine!" Nanase smiled at her.

Ranka smiled in return and sighed as she returned her gaze upward. "I hope so..."

Nanase watched her for a while and then finally sat next to her. "If it helps, if any Sophomore can somehow get through the Senior Year Final Test, it's Sheryl_-san_!"

"Mm." Ranka nodded in agreement. For all the destruction Sheryl's caused, she's never seriously hurt anyone at least.

"But really, Ranka-_chan_, how are things going with Alto_-san_?"

Ranka was silent for a long moment, watching the clouds slowly drift away. "I don't know anymore, Nana-_chan_. It's... weird."

"Huh? Weird how?"

"Well, we're still friends of course. I even ran into him at Griffith Park last week. We talked for hours," Ranka added with a wistful smile.

"Ranka-_chan_! That's wonderful!" Nanase chirped, "What did you talk about?"

"Just stuff," Ranka shrugged, "We talked about our careers, he told me about this new plane LAI was developing that he wanted to get his hands on... Oh, and I sang him part of the new song I'm working on."

"Oh? Which one?" Nanase asked, growing even more curious.

"Afterschool Overflow..." Ranka said, her face falling.

"Ohh..." Nanase flinched in remorse, "Did he even realize what that song was about?"

"I think he knew what it was about, but I didn't tell him he was the inspiration..." Ranka sighed. "I even met him again at the same place Wednesday night, but... that's where things get weird. I mean he's still dating Sheryl-_san_ as far as I know..."

"That's a mixed signal. Maybe something is going on between them."

"Maybe..." Ranka said quietly, "That night Sheryl-_san _was there, too, but we didn't see her. It was Ai-_kun_ who saw her, she was just watching us."

"That Sheryl can be really sneaky sometimes," Nanase said, expressing her annoyance.

"She looked kinda sad."

"Huh? Really?" Nanase's voice softened again.

"Yeah, Ai-_kun_'s getting good at figuring out this emotion and feeling thing. Luca_-san_ says Ai-_kun_ has a lot more brain than most Vajra and that's probably why he's so individualistic compared to the rest."

"Wow, that's amazing! But what do you suppose is up with Sheryl?"

Ranka shrugged, "I don't know... I've been wanting to ask her, but I haven't been able to get the nerve up to do it."

Nanase quirked her lip and gave the matter a moment of thought before she suggested gently, "You know, Ranka-_chan_, if they broke up..."

"I know, Nana-_chan_..." Ranka bowed her head sadly, "But I won't steal him away from her. Sheryl-_san _is my friend, too. I need to know for sure."

"I understand," Nanase nodded, "I know! I'll ask for you!"

"You don't have to do that, Nana-_chan_!"

"Nope, but I'll do it anyway. If they've broken up, you deserve to know!" Nanase said with a bright grin.

Ranka smiled in return as she looked at her friend. Nanase was always looking out for her, and that was what made her such a good friend. "Thanks..."

"Mm," Nanase nodded sharply. "So, speaking of the song, have you finished it yet?"

"Pretty close, I have the lyrics and the tune I think."

"Can I hear it?"

"Heh, sure."

It was a song of unrequited love.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Strike Carrier <strong>_**Alexander**  
><em><strong> Low Orbit, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 1215<strong>_

Sheryl Nome's chest heaved while warm sweat soaked her flight suit through. She had just completed the faux emergency landing of her Valkyrie in GERWALK into the shielded flight deck of the _Alexander_ while under fire from automated drones. The simulated damage report told her she had survived this time, with only a couple paint balls smeared across one of her boosters. It had been her fifth attempt.

"Congratulations, Miss Sheryl," the rough voice of Malanius said to her with a mild tone of amusement, "You managed to land this time without dying. Barely."

Sheryl did not reply. Her lungs were too busy breathing to contemplate speaking. Meanwhile her stomach was busy settling after the extreme deceleration brought on by the _Alexander_'s Grav-Catcher, a field of artificial gravity designed to rapidly decelerate incoming objects by applying even deceleration of up to twenty Gs onto the fighter entering the ship itself. It was what allowed her fighter to attempt a landing at speeds much higher than what would normally be possible, and therefore made it harder for her to be hit. Supposedly.

She had been scared she would miss the Grav-Catcher entirely and splatter herself on the side of the carrier, but she never let onto that over the radio. Alto though had made his worry plain in private communications, telling her to make sure she hits that Grav-Catcher no matter what. It was sensible. A simulated death was a lot better than a real one.

"Is she cleared to get on with the rearming this time, sir?" Alto asked tensely. He, Victor, and even Luca and his Ghosts had all managed to land unscathed the first try.

"Affirmative, she may proceed."

Alto let out a sigh of relief. Sheryl would have done the same herself were it not for her lungs being presently occupied with more important functions. She settled her Valkyrie down in GERWALK on one of the open landing pads, letting the bird sit on its legs.

She became acutely aware of the moist, warm, and stuffy confines of her helmet, and performed the motions to remove it even for a temporary relief. The air of the cockpit was surprisingly hot, but at least it was a dry heat. The heat from the heavy use of the Valkyrie's reaction turbines had gradually seeped into the cockpit, and under normal circumstances life support was only concerned with leaving the cockpit tolerable. The air was thinner, too. Sheryl punched in the life support through the touchscreen interface to order the cockpit to assume a much more comfortable atmosphere. A moment later she felt cool air caress her face as air started to circulate, and she laid her head back against the head rest to relax.

A ping signaled a communications window opening, and in that same instant she felt annoyance creep into her mental state. She glanced over to her right to see Alto's face on the glass looking at her. Next to where it gave his IFF code SAGITTARIUS-01 the readout indicated it was on a private and encrypted channel.

"Hey..." Alto said softly. Sheryl had planned on being terse with him in an effort to get some peace and quiet as quickly as possible, but that one little gesture was enough to lift her mood out of its rut. Such a simple thing as the mere tone of his voice did more to relax her than any amount of quiet.

"Hey..." Sheryl said back.

"How are you holding up?"

A nervous pang shot into Sheryl. She had expected the question but an easy answer eluded her. Interview behavior took over. "Never better!" Sheryl said simply. Blatant lies.

Alto's tone carried with it a mild tone of skepticism, "Really?"

"Of course! I'm Sheryl Nome, after all, and as a singer I have had plenty of experience with breathing and as you know I always keep in shape. You know how important it is to have plenty of energy for the whole show of course." Sheryl paused briefly as she heard Alto sigh. She stuck to her story, but Alto's frown and half-lidded eyes gave her the feeling her act wasn't working. It never worked on Alto. "As a professional I never skimp on anything, and after dozens of shows, ehh, performance anxiety is a thing of the past." She waved her hand as if ushering said performance anxiety to move along and harass some other passerby.

Alto spoke evenly, "Sheryl, your flying is erratic, your reactions resemble panic, and your aim is way off from your normal. It doesn't take a genius to see this has been rough on you."

"I can handle it," Sheryl said confidently.

Alto's face tensed in frustration. "Why is that so important all of a sudden_?_!" his voice was raised, "Come on, you being in the military is just a publicity stunt for recruitment, you don't have to do any of this! You're just overdoing it."

And with that Sheryl's tenuous calm broke. Her balled fists slammed the EX-Gear with fury matching her voice, "Oh, like _you're_ one to talk about overdoing things, Princess _Corkscrew_! Or did you forget about that time you did that unplanned stunt during one of _my_ shows and nearly got _me_ killed?_"_

Alto lashed back as if he were chewing out a raw recruit, "I _didn't_ forget! That was a long time ago and that's the very lesson that I'm trying to get past your stubborn skull! Doing this to prove you can or for the spectacle is no reason to be in this job, and if you keep going like this you're going to get yourself or someone else kill-" Sheryl's fist slammed the touchscreen, and with a ping the comm channel closed and cut him off.

"That's not why I'm doing this..." she said to herself as tears suddenly welt up in her eyes. She didn't want him to see that. Her muscles twitched with how tense they were. Annoyed, Sheryl punched the canopy release and climbed out of the cockpit with the powered EX-Gear still on her. The arms tending to her Valkyrie paused in their action and waited for her to clear the area, whirling their amber caution lights as a computer vocalized over the flight deck comms, "_Obstruction at pad four. Please clear._" She was in no hurry, however, her mind was occupied by what Alto had said, the repetition of an argument that came up again and again, and each time it got worse. She stepped out on the deck and turned back to look at the VF-25, the former shine now buried under high caliber paint ball splatters of red, yellow, blue, green, white, magenta, taupe... She couldn't even see much of the original paint job anymore, it was almost entirely replaced with this mess that could pass as modern art.

The arms got back to cleaning when Sheryl finally got clear, methodically going about returning the plane to its pristine shine and full loadout of ordnance and fuel. So easily were her mishaps and failings washed away like this. If it had been the real thing, it occurred to her, those hits wouldn't simply be washed away. How many holes would have been put into her fighter if it had been real? How many times might her plane have been shot down? How many times might she have died? These thoughts plagued her mind as she knew they plagued Alto's, and Ranka's, too. Had it been so different when Alto went off to war? There had been times when she had wished Alto would give it up himself and resign his commission. She knew he wanted to fly, but he could do that without fighting. Yet here she was now, pursuing the fight herself, and somehow the worry for her was greater though the feelings behind them were not. Sheryl was scared. Everyone was scared.

Sheryl sat on the edge of the strike carrier's deck, held in place by fringe artificial gravity from the generators that held the Valkyries secure to the deck. The planet's horizon extended out before her in a long and gentle curve. A blue aura transitioned the blues and browns to the diamond crevasse of space. She tried to lose herself in it, but her mind clung to the same train of thought, to that one question, that one worry, that one fear which made it different from Alto's experience.

Maybe she just wasn't cut out for this.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Bridge, <strong>_**Macross Quarter**  
><em><strong> Landing Bay, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong>1227<strong>_

"Wow," was the first word to come out of Mina Roshan's mouth after what she had just heard on the headset. With her IQ, spying on private communications was no challenge, especially when she knew the protocols and had already personally hacked all of SMS's Valkyrie's private encryption keys. On another headset next to her Ram Hoa had heard the same thing and her pained face was clear. She kept her voice quiet so only Ram would hear. "That was a hell of an argument."

"That was just awful, why do they have to fight over this?" Ram finally said.

"It's pretty obvious where Alto is coming from in this, he's scared of Sheryl pushing too far and getting herself killed. Meanwhile, Sheryl feels a little useless and that frustrates her."

"It probably is just another publicity stunt," Ram said, "This is all going to go on her next documentary and they'll milk it to keep up her publicity for the government to use a little longer for pilot recruitment."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't it? I mean... hey wait." Ram suddenly looked around, then checked her monitors. Mina grinned as she watched realization dawn on her. "There aren't any camera crews. Not anywhere!"

"And there lies the conundrum," Mina nodded.

"Why is Sheryl going through this if there aren't any camera crews?"

"I don't know," Mina shrugged, "Maybe General Krridgel or Captain Wilder wouldn't allow it and they're planning on using interviews and gun camera footage instead. Or _maybe_ she did this herself and no one in government even knows. She did only get added to the flight roster at the last minute."

"That is kinda weird," Ram replied. "Still, she didn't do that bad for a raw recruit."

"Yeah, but if she's not careful she's going to end up hurting her career if she sticks with this too long. She should have taken the graceful way out when the war ended, now it's going to be hard to come up with the right spin to keep her looking good."

"Yeah," Ram agreed, "I mean just look at Alto, even he's starting to get frustrated by it."

"Those two need to work out their issues honestly, one way or another if you know what I mean," she smirked.

Ram giggled, "Hey, if she gets pregnant that'll kill two birds with one stone! I can see it now, 'Galactic Fairy quits career over pregnancy, father former Kabuki star and military pilot Alto Saotome!'"

Mina giggled next, "Ooh, scandal. That sounds like something out of a bad tabloid."

"Yeah!" Ram continued to giggle as she looked over her screens, "Hey, Mina, what's that reading there? It's coming awful close to the training area."

"Oh, that?" Mina looked back at it and thumbed a few controls to bring up the detailed readings, "It looks like it's just a broken up comet or asteroid. I already looked at its trajectory; It'll come close but it won't enter the training area, and it should break up over Sky Ocean when it hits the atmosphere."

"What about Lyrae-Three?" Ram pointed out the contact to one of _Battle Frontier_'s patrol planes, identified as a recon version VF-171. "He's headed straight for it."

Mina's eyes narrowed, "Yeah, he's not even supposed to be there actually, his patrol was supposed to take him a thousand kilometers further south. Open a channel and give him a warning, his sensors may be out of whack."

Ram nodded and flicked her hands over the controls. "Lyrae-Three, this is _Quarter_, you look like you're a little off course and we wanted to warn you about some space debris in your immediate area."

The pilot of Lyrae-Three came over Mina's headphones as readily as Ram's. "I know, I was just giving it a closer look. Thought I caught a glint from it. Might just be ice water, but from this close they look kinda weird. I'm running a scan now."

Mina double-checked her own readings, but the data she was provided didn't indicate anything different. She patched her own microphone in, "Looks clean from down here, Lyrae-Three." As she said that she saw a spike in the infrared band from one of the chunks. "Wait." She checked her instruments, and as she did, the rest of the debris exhibited the same sudden spike nearly all at once, and the levels were rising. Mina's training told her that could only be one thing, one terrible thing that made her scream into the mike, "LYRAE-THREE! BREAK OFF! BREAK OFF _NOW_!"

Too late. The sound of Lyrae-Three's active radar warning screamed through the headphones along with his voice, "_HOLY SHI-!_" A deep bass thud followed by a static burst cut off his scream and made Ram and Mina jump in their seats.

"Lyrae-Three? Lyrae-Three!" Ram shouted with a shaky voice. Lyrae-Three's IFF signal disappeared with the words CONTACT LOST flashing up at his last known position.

Mina spun in her chair to face the rest of the bridge. This was beyond her help now. "Captain! We have a situation!"

* * *

><p><em><strong><em><strong>Strike Carrier <strong>_**_****Alexander****  
><em><strong> Low Orbit, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 1230<strong>_

A new star suddenly appeared before Sheryl Nome in the black above, a faint red dot that disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared. It drew her mind away from her train of thought as she wondered what it was, a wondering that was soon answered by the sudden buzz of radio chatter on general communications.

"_SAFEGUARD! SAFEGUARD! SAFEGUARD! Multiple Quebec-Romeos detected at New Frontier two-point-seven-one, inclination point-zero-niner, altitude five hundred kilometers! Flight two-seven is down! S.A.R. and alert fighters scramble! SCRAMBLE!" _The woman shouted. Sheryl did not know who it was, but the limited HUD on her helmet indicated the transmission came from Frontier's flagship, the supercarrier _Battle Frontier_.

"Geeze!" Victor called over Sagittarius' channel as the _Battle Frontier _operator repeated herself. "Alto, that's right on top of us!"

"Sagittarius squadron, stand by!" General Kriddgel suddenly ordered them.

Sheryl felt her heart start to race. It seemed a battle was about to start, but she was confused. "Wh- what's a Quebec-Romeo?"

"Queadluun-Raus!" Luca replied.

"Meltran battle suits, Sheryl!" Alto explained, rightly knowing that Queadluun-Rau meant as little to her as Quebec-Romeo, but she could quite clearly picture a Meltran battle suit from a classic movie she saw once about Space War One. Meltran was the name given to females of the Zentradi race, necessary due to their segregated society, but they were just as much warrior driven as their brothers, and just as large. Battle suits were the size of Battroids, just large enough to house their enormous bodies in an extremely cramped cockpit located in the torso. It had more in common with powered armor suits like EX-Gear's than it did with a space fighter, but they were nonetheless fast, maneuverable, well-armed, and dangerous. "How the hell did they get this close?" Alto asked.

"Oh no..." the sound of what must have been Luca hitting his helmet came over the line, "Based on this data, they must have defolded somewhere several hundred thousand kilometers off, burned in our direction and then shut off and coasted in! They looked like nothing more than any other random space debris!"

"Huh," Victor commented, "That's pretty risky to go into a hornet's nest cold like that."

"They got the drop on Lyrae-Three. Wait... what?"

Luca didn't get the time to finish. "Sagittarius-One!" Kriddgel came on again, "You are ordered to intercept and engage the bandits immediately! OPFOR count is niner Quebec-Romeos on intercept course for the mega-transport _Naglfar_. You are the only fighting force in range to intercept. You are weapons free and may shoot to kill." Kriddgel paused, then added more gently, "Bring whomever you deem necessary."

"Luca! Victor! We're taking off! Sagittarius-One to _Alexander _control, Sagittarius-One, Two, Three, Five, Six, and Seven requesting clearance for immediate launch."

"Granted, Sagittarius-One. Good luck!"

A flare of light from behind Sheryl drew her eye. She turned in time to see Alto's VF-25 take off down the flight deck in GERWALK, then as it cleared the deck he transformed into fighter mode and shot off at high speed. "Luca, put Ghosts on each of our wings! Victor, find a sniper position on the Great Spiral or something!" Victor's VF-25 quickly followed suit. "Luca! Fly directly for the transport and escort it to secure airspace."

"But Alto, there are _nine _of them! We should all engage them!" Luca called back. He and his ghosts shot off into space next.

"Twenty minutes and you'll have the alert fighters with you, we just need to buy some time and we need to make sure that transport is covered. Victor, two of your Ghosts, and I can keep them busy. We just need to make sure none of them try to break off and chase down the _Naglfar_."

"Wait!" Sheryl shouted, "What about me?"

"You stay there, Sheryl!"

"What_?_! Why?" Sheryl asked. "You need all the help you can get!"

"And that's exactly why you need to stay right where you are!" Alto shouted clearly, "Just stay there and if anything gets close just let the ship's CIWS take care of it. I don't want you to even _think_ about taking that Valkyrie out, okay? That will help me out plenty."

Sheryl's heart sank and she didn't answer. He had made up his mind. He didn't want her to help, he just wanted her to watch their purple lights disappear against the black sky. Luca's was heading far to the right, north by the reference frame of the planet. Victor's broke off and dropped to the Great Spiral. Each of them were accompanied by one of Luca's Ghosts.

"In position!" Victor called out suddenly, "I have a shot!"

"Take it!" Alto called out.

The clap of Victor's sniper rifle resonated faintly over the comm. A few seconds later Sheryl saw another dim red flash in the distance. "That's a kill!" Victor called out.

"They're starting evasive maneuvers, I guess you got their attention," Alto said tensely. "Now let's see them get mine."

Sheryl's heart skipped a beat as she heard gunfire and explosions sound distantly over the communications channel. She could hear Alto's every strain and grunt, as well as the roar of his engines and the gyros of the transformation systems. She imagined him weaving and dancing around the Queadluun-Raus in an intricate series of evasive maneuvers, dodging any number of live and dangerous shots. The area of space around Victor's kill now became a dull orange glow from the continuous exchange of weapons. Occasionally she would hear the report of Victor's rifle.

"You sure you don't want my Ghost, Alto?" Victor asked.

"I'm definitely not leaving you without a wingman at hand, Victor!" Alto grunted out slowly as he continued fighting.

"Well okay..." Victor conceded, though his tone of uncertainty did nothing to settle Sheryl's lurching stomach. It was like she was watching the final battle from the Vajra campaign all over again. She had a camera just to watch Alto's fighter then, just so she would know he was still alive at all times, but the memory of that event haunted her, the image of a particle lance tearing a hole through his Valkyrie, of it spinning lazily out of control, the fire spreading across the fuselage, and then the explosion, ripping it to pieces. Alto had ejected before that, but the chaos of the battle between the camera and Alto obscured him at times, and she hadn't seen him eject.

Part of her wanted to sing, to do something that might help like she had in that battle, but she didn't know what good it would have here. She didn't have any communication line to the Meltrans to try a Minmei Attack, and as for Alto and the rest of Sagittarius she felt the growing need to help.

Part of her wanted to fly, to be there with them, to fight at their side and directly help make sure they all lived. To sing was not enough. To sing might not save them. Her songs just conveyed her feelings, but surely Alto already knew them.

A red flare brighter than the background glow made a brief appearance. "That's another down, only seven more to-" Another flare up and Alto was cut off. Sheryl's gut nearly tore itself apart in an instant, but thankfully Alto spoke again, "_Shit!_" Sheryl fiddled with the helmet screen to get the limited HUD to show what happened. She realized that contact had been lost with one of Luca's Ghosts, the one that was with Alto.

"Joshua! No!" Luca called out in empathy for his machine friend before he remembered his human one, "Oh no, Alto!"

"I know, Luca!" Alto shouted, "Just stay with the transport!"

"I can come help! You can't take on seven without a wingman, Alto!"

"Grnh!" Alto grunted under high-G stress. "I know! Just-"

"Come on, Alto!" Frequent sniper rifle bursts punctuated Victor's sentences, "Just take Peter! You gotta have a wingman! I can take care of my-" a warning alarm suddenly sounded, "_Fu-_!" A burst of static censored Victor. "You have _got_ to be_ kidding me_!" A dot suddenly launched off from the the Great Spiral, followed by another, and then three more. "I've got three more Quebec-Romeos here!"

Luca's voice was frustrated, "Damn it! They had more hidden in reserve! Now that makes ten left! Alto! I'm pulling back to assist!"

"_No!_" Alto ordered, "Stay with the transport! If there's more, drawing you off could be exactly what they want!"

"But you don't have a wingman! There's no way!"

"_I know!_" Alto grunted. The metal of his plane audibly bucked with a nearby explosion and Alto shouted, "But that's an order!"

Sheryl's heart sank, her mouth hung agape and she was already panting from the adrenaline racing through her system.

"Victor! Can you link up?" Luca asked desperately.

"Sorry! They're stonewalling my attempts to get to Alto! They're just playing prevent defense over here! I'd _kill _for a Gatling gunpod right about now!"

"Alto..." Sheryl took a deep breath, but she couldn't sing. Alto once told her that she was one of his wings, but he was alone with no one to cover him. What good would her song do? He didn't need wings like that right now, he needed a wing_man_. She was reminded of the helplessness she felt, of how little her song could do amend the pains of war, to save lives. Sure, it had worked before, but could she count on it? Count on a miracle through her song? It was crazy to suggest even, and each time before he possessed one of her earrings. She told herself that was really why he survived both of those times. She really did believe they conveyed her feelings and her song through the Fold Quartz. But this time, both of them were still on her own ears, and it was too late to offer one now. Again, the helplessness, and the sight of Alto's fighter on fire and out of control flashed through her head.

Something drew at her mind then. She felt compelled to turn, and she did, she turned around and saw the resting VF-25F Messiah standing in GERWALK on the deck. It was refueled, rearmed, and ready with its white and sky blue paint job glinting under the light of the solar system. It was waiting.

"I'm sorry, Alto..." Sheryl took off in a race for the fighter. Her comms were muted. "But I won't lose you... Not when there's something I can do about it!" Sheryl fell into the cockpit. The display read STANDBY. "No matter what happens..." The canopy snapped shut, the EX-Gear clicked back into place and deployed in direct interface to serve as the Valkyrie's controls. The engines hummed to life as the display flashed STARTUP. "I'm still your wing."

READY.

_**~ Episode 1 End ~**_

_****_

_**See you next deculture...**_


	4. Ep2p1: Attack

_A/N: Just wanted to say some of you have noticed aspects that are... as intended. I'm glad you people are enjoying it! Yes, it would be nice to have more readership traffic, but hey, I figure if I write it, they will come. Or, more accurate, if I write it, they CAN come. They certainly can't very well come if it's not written, so clearly it must be written, but even then, this wants to be written regardless. Some of you may have been slightly disappointed by the lack of detail in the combat that took place in the last part, but that was intended due to where Sheryl was. Based on the cliffhanger for last episode, you can probably guess where Sheryl will be now, so hopefully you'll enjoy this. As a final note: No, I can't think of anything I actually lifted that line in Ep 1 part 2 from, but I've been known to mash things together and unintentionally paraphrase. I was actually a little embarrassed to write something under the pretense of being so profound, I always tend to think they sound a little lame when I make them up. Anyway, on to the battle. This part is a bit short, and I apologize for that, after I wrote this episode I realized that there was no good breaking point between Part 1 and Part 2, the section that comes immediately after the last of this part is very long, and I decided that it worked better attached to Part 2 as opposed to Part 1. I added these author comments between episodes to partially make up for it. Oh, and if it wasn't obvious, I'm posting new parts every Wednesday and hope to keep to this schedule, and yes, I have some padding. Enjoy! Oh look, Meltrans.  
><em>

* * *

><p><em><strong>~ Episode 2 Start ~<strong>_

_** Upper Stratosphere**_  
><em><strong> The Great Spiral, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 1234, 27 February 2060<strong>_

"Deculture!" Laela Romi shouted angrily as the miclone once again shook her from his tail. She turned her head and watched it bank around her while she cut to the outside, expecting a predictable counter attack. Sure enough the craft changed its shape to a proper combat form and fired bullets on blue tracers in her direction. The white craft had more engines and better maneuverability than any craft she had ever seen before, miclone or otherwise, and despite it being outnumbered heavily, killing it was taking too much time.

The plan had gone off without a hitch until these pilots showed up. Defold out of their range, burn to the target area, then go dark and let inertia carry them the rest of the way. She had expected possibly encountering a one or two-craft patrol, and her measures to deal with it had worked flawlessly. Where the plan had gone wrong was the quick response of these craft. She had expected to have some twenty minutes before the miclones could scramble in to intercept, but these were on top of her squadron in less than five. And now despite outnumbering them she was already down by two of her hand-picked warriors, one, Bala, by the coward on the rock at long-range, and another, Dresi, killed by the white one.

"Commander," the older voice of the veteran Hira suddenly cut in, "With respect, we don't have time for this."

Laela glanced at the mission clock on her helmet's HUD before she conceded, "Hira, I trust you to keep this miclone bastard occupied. Take Yvet and Qali, and I'd prefer to hear that Dresi has been avenged before we're through here! The rest of you with me!"

Laela thrust her Queadluun-Rau toward the horizon sharply. Three others formed up on her.

"At least Dresi died well," came the high-pitched and young voice of Nwinthe. A young warrior with fierce loyalty and dedication, and always an optimist. But here, in battle, Laela could hear a nervous edge to Nwinthe's voice.

"A fate we can all hope for one day, but not all at once. Today it is more important that there be victory, for there lies true glory," Laela said boldly.

"Do you think it will be there, Laela?" Nwinthe asked excitedly, her Queadluun-Rau taking up Laela's flank.

"I hope so, Nwinthe. I am tired of watching warriors die to these miclone hacks with their... _culture _and _technology_. But if we are successful, then Dresi and Bala will not have died in vain."

* * *

><p><em>It is the year 2060 AD. Fifty years ago humanity was nearly extinguished by a warrior race called the <strong>Zentradi<strong>, a race bred for war who had never known civility and **culture**. It was the song and beauty of one young human woman which at last taught them that there was more to life than war, and since then many have come to join humanity in peace. But there still exists many Zentradi fleets and clans who are afraid of embracing culture and fight against the tides of change. It is a losing war for these Zentradi as treason and human technological innovation gradually forces them to their knees. Only the wise among them know that this is their darkest hour, and if matters continue as they have, then the traditional Zentradi will die out. And, as the **Meltran** are merely the name of female Zentradi in their deeply segregated society, so too will they._

_ Tactics change with the times, as does strategy. Such is the way of war._

_**F2: Wings of the Fairy, Episode 2 – The Kill**_

_**Upper Stratosphere**_  
><em><strong> The Great Spiral, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong>1235<strong>_

"Sagittarius-Four! You are _not _clear for take-off! I repeat, you are _not clear _for- _Damn it_!"

Multiple Gs slammed Sheryl Nome into the back of her seat as her Valkyrie shot off the strike carrier's flight deck at high speed and quickly left it far behind. Six plumes of purple plasma blasted out of the exhaust ports of the fighter's two main engines and the Super Pack itself, rocketing her fighter off on an intercept trajectory for Alto's as indicated on her HUD. She could make out distant flashes of light where Alto was. She triggered a holographic zoom, spotting Alto's fighter involved in a myriad of evasive maneuvers as one, two, three Queadluun-Raus swarmed over his fighter. _Where are the other ones?_ Sheryl thought.

"Luca!" Alto shouted, then grunted with stress, "Four of them broke off! They're coming after you!"

Shery's breath was still shaky as she looked over her instruments for confirmation. Only three of them were chasing Alto now, but she didn't give herself time to really think about it, she could only think of saving Alto, she focused on it. All that mattered right now was doing what she set out to do. Just what she set out to do.

Sheryl's fingers jerked over the throttle and stick. She selected missiles, her eyes glanced at each of the three enemies pursuing Alto and the helmet's eye tracker promptly placed a target reticule over each, starting a tone to signal lock on, percentage indicators showing how close she was to a solid lock on based on the weapon's algorithm for success probabilities. Her breathing grew heavier as she watched the shots fall around Alto, one even glancing off his pin-point barrier. Sheryl's reaction was a gasp, and she suddenly mashed the firing stud. She hadn't kept track of how many she had selected to fire, resolving simply to fire enough.

The shoulder hatches sprung and thirty-six micro missiles shot from every launch port on her Valkyrie in a monsoon of blue contrails, bathing her cockpit in the light of their exhaust as each darted toward a target on a slightly different trajectory, twelve to each, zipping across several kilometers in only seconds, and at her speed she was soon to follow. The Meltrans reacted far sooner, however, turning to ascertain the incoming threat then quickly breaking off to avoid the missiles, one of them firing pulse laser shots in point defense. The three targets zipped away in twisting turns, spiraling off in different directions as the missiles exploded behind them in series.

"_What the hell?_!" Alto shouted. Sheryl breathed a sigh of relief as she tried to turn to pull alongside Alto, only to overshoot him dramatically at her speed. She jerked the stick back in an attempt to compensate, using the legs in GERWALK to help slow her down. Alto pulled up to her instead and made it appear effortless.

"What? Not a 'Thanks, Sheryl'?" Sheryl's shaky voice replied in an ineffectual attempt to lighten the mood for her own sake. She looked at his fighter out her canopy to try to see if he'd been wounded or damaged, but she barely got a second before his fighter suddenly flipped and transformed into Battroid almost in the blink of an eye.

"_Break right now!_" Alto shouted as his Battroid fired a burst of its Gatling pod toward their rear. Sheryl blinked in momentary confusion but in an instant a warning siren made it clear what he meant. Sheryl whipped her fighter to the right as a stream of red laser fire flew past her in a rapid fire burst. The sudden bank momentarily made her dizzy, even startled when her vision turned to grey for a split second, all the result of a high-G turn. Behind her she caught one of the Meltrans zipping past her six o'clock. She tried to turn to avoid, but the Meltran compensated and quickly pulled in on her tail throwing blasts of red her way in an aggressive attack. She rolled her fighter back and forth to try to evade. A hit on her fighter nearly gave her a heart attack before she realized her Valkyrie's pin-point barrier had blocked it. Then a burst of blue suddenly crossed between Sheryl and her pursuer, weapons fire from Alto's gunpod near enough to cause the Meltran to break off. Alto's fighter came up behind her smoothly and efficiently to cover her rear, "For God's sake, Sheryl! I told you to stay out of this!"

"I was-"

"Never mind! Just get the hell out of here!"

"I'm not leaving you without a wingman!"

Alto's engines suddenly pivoted on the leg joints in a complete inversion and he decelerated rapidly in GERWALK with a flurry of chaff. A dozen missiles came from out of nowhere and exploded where he had been only moments before. The shockwave was close enough to rattle Sheryl's own fighter. Out of the smoke of the detonation erupted not Alto but an enemy battle suit. It quickly marked Sheryl's fighter and gave pursuit. Sheryl pulled her fighter into a basic barrel roll in an attempt to avoid its weapon fire. After only moments of tailing the enemy suit's head turned to glance behind itself, then rocketed off at high speed past Sheryl's left flank with a half-dozen missiles in hot pursuit.

Sheryl grit her teeth and pulled the nose of her fighter toward this enemy. It overshot her flight path and flew by, trailing a staccato lance of laser defense that eventually shot down the oncoming missiles. Sheryl switched to guns and the targeting computer automatically began to acquire a firing solution while the enemy struggled to kill the remaining missiles. As the last missile went down, the computer signaled TAG./ACQUIRED. Sheryl swallowed, hesitating, then pulled the trigger as her breath hung. The five-barrel Gatling gun on the underside of her plane roared out a hail of fifty-eight millimeter armor-piercing incendiaries and blue tracers all racing toward her intended target, yet during her moment of hesitation the target had noticed her, and in an instant the pilot changed direction and lost the targeting computer's firing solution. She missed, and was thirty-four rounds poorer for it.

Sheryl struggled with the controls to keep the enemy in her sights. She attempted to close in gradually to keep herself from overshooting. Her breathing was still quick and heavy, her face warm from fluster, her skin sweated into the G-suit. The two danced in a myriad of evasive maneuvers and counter maneuvers, giving the former songstress a difficult time of getting her target close enough for the computer to lock on.

The target dropped to the deck, the rocky surface of the Great Spiral perched in near orbit of the planet. Sheryl maintained her pursuit, feeling a drop of sweat run down her face at odd angles as she pulled Gs every which way, making her feel somewhat lightheaded from it all. Her mind focused on this target and the pursuit, thinking of how having it in her sights kept it from threatening Alto at all. She didn't notice one of the other battlesuits darting into her rear quarter until a warning siren sounded and a flurry of lasers raked her Messiah.

Sheryl banked hard from the first impact, screaming first from the shock, then from the Gs. A Caution on her multifunction display drew attention to the fact that her pin-point barrier had expended its energy and was offline for the next several seconds, and also that she had taken real hits. The second battlesuit darted around her at close range with more shots being fired her way. In a panic Sheryl dropped her Valkyrie into GERWALK mode and used the engines that were the legs to blast herself into a sudden change of direction. She wildly swung her Gatling gun, now deployed in the Valkyrie's right hand, to retaliate and she pulled the trigger.

Time seemed to slow as shell casings jettisoned from the chamber in thuds of weapon fire faster than the beating of Sheryl's own heart, dozens of rounds flung in the general direction of her attacker. The Meltran's engines roared again and moved to outmaneuver the random shots with relative ease, leaving the bullets to shred the rocky landscape that served as the dogfight's backdrop.

Sheryl's breath came in overwhelmed pants, her trigger squeezed almost in a death grip and the barrels began to glow from excessive heat. Sheryl simply kept firing while she manipulated the pedals to keep her Valkyrie moving and maneuvering to avoid the pulses of lasers, desperate to put some distance between her and the battlesuit. Her eyes were glued to the target as if taking her eyes off it meant certain death. Suddenly a trail of bright blue came from beyond her self-imposed tunnel vision and streaked into the battlesuit with an eruption of fire, followed swiftly by a second. Sheryl gasped as the battlesuit exploded in a shower of burning debris, the shock causing her to let go of the trigger.

"Sheryl! SHERYL!" Alto shouted for her attention. Sheryl blinked and shooked her head.

"Uhh, Alto?" Sheryl said hurriedly as she struggled to catch her breath. She glanced around and saw Alto's fighter pull up alongside hers in GERWALK and match her speed.

"Geeze..." Alto said with a sigh of relief, "Watch your ass out here, Sheryl, you almost got killed!"

"Don't you think I know that_?_!" Sheryl shouted, still tense and riding an adrenaline high. She glanced down at her screens and wondered what happened to the other two.

"Sheryl, calm down! If you want to help you won't help me by losing your cool."

Sheryl turned and looked at him out the canopy window, a holographic communications window had also opened up for Alto, and she turned her gaze between both. She found his face and his eyes oddly calming, though still she struggled to catch her breath.

"Remember that night at the manor during the Vajra war? When SMS pulled out?" Alto said in a calming voice.

Sheryl smiled a little, "How could I forget?"

"You asked me to give you courage. Well consider some more on the table now."

Sheryl was feeling better by the second, she felt her cheeks flush and she gave Alto a look with half-lidded eyes as she said his name in a lusty tone, "Alto..."

"Uhh..." Alto blushed and added quickly, "The _literal_ kind of courage, not your euphemism!"

Victor suddenly cut in with a strained, distracted tone, "I feel like I'm missing out on something juicy here."

Alto ignored him and continued on, "Okay, the damage doesn't look too bad, Sheryl, it looks like it hit the Super Pack and nicked a wing, but there's not much air where we are anyway." Sheryl's eyes looked over the multifunction display and fiddled with the touchscreen until she found the damage readout. It confirmed what Alto indicated, one of the Super Pack's maneuvering thrusters were disabled and the left flap was damaged, but nothing serious. She had been lucky.

Alto added, "Now I need to get to the transport, just stay put, alright?"

"Like hell I'm going to let you go alone!" Sheryl stared down Alto's face on the screen with new-found courage.

Alto bit back a strangled growl, "Alright! Fine! But you'll do _exactly_ what I tell you to and you're going to stay on my tail close enough to smell my ass, got it?"

"Yes, sir!"

Together they transformed into fighter mode and flew off at high speed to intercept the transport.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Upper Stratosphere<strong>_  
><em><strong>New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong>1238<strong>_

Laela scoffed as her missiles made short work of the Miclone vessel's pitiful defense turret. It had been far too easy to simply spiral ahead of its tracking rate to dispatch it.

"Laela! Ola is down!" came the sudden scream of Helia, a scream which made Laela's teeth only grit harder. Helia grunted harshly into the microphone. "I'm not going to last long like this!"

"Hold, Helia!" Hira said, "Qali and I are here."

"What?" Laela asked suddenly. "Hira, report on your actions."

"Another Miclone fighter turned up to the fight. Yvet is dead. I ordered Qali to follow me to the transport when that became apparent. We cannot take them on with even numbers."

Laela shut her eyes momentarily.

_* * *  
>"This is a strange mission," Laela had pointed out to her commanding officer. "Why? Why us? And why all these specifics? How do we even know all of this?"<em>

_ The other woman, Karia, stood at a viewport looking out over the vast Meltran fleet she had at her disposal, thousands of ships and millions of warriors, yet she chose Laela's own twelve, and only her twelve, to entrust such a dangerous assignment to. Laela thought for certain if it were so important it would be entrusted to a battle group, not a single squad._

_ "If there were another option, I would have considered it, but this..." Karia paused, "I believe it to be our best chance of success. I trust your unit because you have all encountered Culture before and have already been fully briefed on it and the Miclones. You and your squadron have demonstrated a resilience against its corruption."_

_ "That was an incidental contact, and now you wish to send me directly at it? Are we not supposed to avoid all contact with the Miclones and Culture?"_

_ "We are, but they have something that is very important to us," Karia said, but did not elaborate._

_ "And you will not tell me even what this is for?"_

_ "I can only tell you that if it is correct, if it is what our archivists believe it to be, then and only then will I tell you exactly what it is. Until then all I can tell you is that it is... an edge."_

_ "An edge?" Laela asked quizically._

_ "There is a war that we now wage, Laela, and no it is not against our ancient foe, but against those very Miclones you encountered before. And we are not winning this war, Laela. No, in fact we are losing..." a very long pause, "... Badly."_

_ "What?" Laela asked in disbelief. "Our fleet... our clan is fine! We have never been stronger!"_

_ Karia turned sharply, a tuft of her cape flapping in the air, "Not our fleet or our clan, Laela. All Zentradi. Have you not noticed how some ships have disappeared? Or how entire fleets seem to one day cease to be in contact with us? This is no coincidence, this is the doings of the Miclones. In the past fifty years the combined military might of the entire Zentradi has been __**halved**__."_

_ Laela could only recoil in shock at what Karia told her. The very thought was beyond all reckoning. There were hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of ships in the combined might of the __Zentradi. Such losses had not been seen since the height of the Supervision Army War five hundred thousand years ago. "How... how is that possible?"_

_ "They possess many weapons, Laela. With each passing year, these weapons only become more numerous and more... advanced, improved, but none of this matters when they possess the ability to make our warriors join them without them even firing a shot."_

_ "Impossible!" Laela shouted._

_ "I have said all that I will," Karia said with a tone of finality, "This is to be kept in utmost secrecy, Laela, but what I have told you is the truth. That is why your resistance is important, and why your mission is important. You deserve to know what it is you fight for, and what some of you may die for. Remember it."_

_ Karia turned back to the window. After Laela had processed what Karia had said she straightened sharply. "I will not fail you!"  
>* * *<em>

And then she opened them again.

Laela's muscles steeled as her Queadluun-Rau hit the hull of the large, rectangular vessel feet first. Nwinthe followed. "Support Helia," Laela ordered flatly. "Nwinthe! We do not have much time so work fast!" Laela looked at a section of hull and triggered off a few missiles. The covers on her hips retracted and flitted off four missiles, which arched up and overhead before suddenly turning and ramming the spot of hull she looked upon violently. The explosion caused the metal to first implode inward, then suddenly exploded outward as the pressurized air within suddenly found an outlet. The resulting hole was large enough for them to easily enter, and quickly she did, followed shortly by Nwinthe.

She did not forget what Karia had told her.


	5. Ep2p2: Hurricane

_** Upper Stratosphere**_  
><em><strong> New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong>1239<strong>_

The Great Spiral disappeared over the horizon behind Alto's and Sheryl's VF-25s. Despite the inertial compensator and the EX-Gear, Sheryl was still straining from the acceleration with the throttle pushed to maximum.

There were two G indicators on the HUD of the VF-25, one for the plane and one for the pilot. The necessity of the two values was because of the Inertial Compensator, a complex system that acted to reduce the G-load on the cockpit's occupants. It operated under physics Sheryl still did not fully understand, something to do with superdimension energy, but she was aware of the practical applications and limitations. The system operated on a stable level during basic maneuvers, cutting off a little less than one standard gravity. It operated at this level up until its soft limiter of nine Gs, the average tolerance level for a trained pilot in a G-suit or EX-Gear, where it would then start to amplify its output to keep the pilot from blacking out. In theory it could allow the pilot to experience no Gs at all even while pulling a twenty G turn, but under such strain the Inertial Compensator would very quickly overload, thus it made allowances for the pilot to take some of the Gs so that the system could be used more continuously for improved maneuverability.

Sheryl glanced at her own G indicators and found herself quietly grateful for the Inertial Compensator. Her Valkyrie was pushing twenty-one Gs of acceleration in an attempt to catch up to the Transport, which was still traveling horrifically fast. She herself saw 6.1 Gs, and even that was a crushing stress. There existed an option to change the soft limit on the Inertial Compensator to engage at different G levels, which many pilots used this feature in order to calibrate it to their own unique physical tolerance level. Sheryl could adjust to compensate for more Gs than normal. As a cadet she just wasn't used to this, but out of pride or out of fear she did not take the option.

Even with these reduced loads, talking would normally be impossible. One added feature of the IC was that it would greatly amplify its output if the pilot pressed the 'talk' button on the throttle if the Gs were too high. It was a bad idea to use it while banking, but for straight line acceleration it was more practical. The developers had specifically made the IC to focus on handling forward acceleration with the greatest efficiency.

At the edge of the horizon ahead of them they could make out flashes of light from the battle being waged.

"Luca!" Alto grunted. Even though the Inertial Compensator let him talk coherently, it was still a bit of a strain for the pilot. "What's the situation?"

Luca let out a nervous grunt, "Peter and I are engaged but they chased us off the transport, I couldn't hold my ground! Sorry!"

"Forget it!" Alto snapped, "What are they doing now?"

"Two of them came after Peter and I, we destroyed one but the two from your fight joined in and damaged Peter's guns. They're keeping us away from the _Naglfar_ while the remaining two get on board. I'm sorry, Alto, there wasn't much I could do. _Naglfar_ has aborted atmospheric entry and is burning back to a low orbit."

"They're boarding?" Alto puzzled over that for but a moment, "Do your best, Luca, Sheryl and I are going for the transport."

"_Hai_!" Luca called back. "Wait, _Sheryl?_!"

"I'm here," Sheryl grunted back weakly, still straining against the acceleration.

"Long story!" Alto called out.

Luca laughed excitedly and teased, "She went out to save you!"

Sheryl smiled at the thought and gave a caring glance to Alto's white Messiah. For his part, Alto growled irritably, "Deal with those Queadluun-Raus, Luca!"

"Roger!" Luca called back with a more serious tone.

The view of the battle was quickly getting bigger, and she could now see two distinct sets, one Luca and his Ghost fighting the three battle suits, and the other the super transport _Naglfar_, little more than a long, featureless gray, ribbed rectangle half a kilometer long. Plumes of yellow plasma emerged from the back as it began moving out of the stratosphere to assume a stable orbit. Suddenly, one broke off from Luca's dogfight and zipped to the _Naglfar_.

"One broke off!" Luca called out, "It's going to the ship!"

"I see it," Alto replied.

The Queadluun-Rau matched speed with the transport and moved to board through a hole made in the hull. Alto adjusted his course slightly, and Sheryl resolved simply to follow Alto's lead as best she could, but he wasn't slowing down. She started to wonder why, because they were almost certainly going to overshoot like this. Warning sirens suddenly went off and Sheryl banked left off of Alto's wing in a panic as laser fire shot past them. Alto merely moved to one side with maneuvering jets as if he were changing lanes on a highway. Flashes came from his gun barrel in retaliation, bullets on blue tracers zipped back at the source of fire. She and Alto zipped by at high speed, and she noted at a glance that the enemy battlesuit was still making its way to the hull breach. His intention had been a strafing run.

Alto transformed into GERWALK and swept his legs forward to decelerate and turn around, arms fully deployed. Sheryl followed suit and her engines swept downward into legs, and by manipulating the floor pedals she turned those legs forward to forcibly decelerate her Valkyrie. More laser fire swept past them. Sheryl brought her own gunpod to bear with a zoom reticule focused on the battlesuit but hesitated for fear of hitting the transport. Alto had no such issue and fired readily. A trail of sparks and small explosions ran across the hull breach, causing the battlesuit to jump back from the breach. She was surprised to see that the bullets did relatively little to the thick hull plating. A fleeting realization replaced by that of incoming missiles.

Warning sirens blared and Sheryl yanked the stick back and mashed the throttle with a panicked gasp. She felt her body being crushed into the seat, her vision dimmed, tunneled, then turned to black in only seconds. Sheryl managed to let off the stick and throttle before she lost consciousness, fighting off dizziness while her vision returned and muffled sirens continued to blare for attention. Missiles were still incoming, perhaps the same, perhaps more that were launched, she couldn't say from her limited awareness. She pulled the throttle up into an upright position in response, triggering a transformation to Battroid. The body of her fighter folded around her as its form changed from a vaguely plane like shape to a humanoid one, with the wings folded back along with the Super Pack's boosters to form some semblance of a jet pack. It pulled the cockpit into the torso and covered it with energy conversion armor. Darkness surrounded her for only an instant, then holographic panels lit up with a full view of her surroundings as seen from the head sensors of her VF-25. Each stick now manipulated its representative arm directly, fluidly even as the EX-Gear's arm itself served to measure and follow the pilot's own movements for ease of control.

The transformation took less than a second coming from GERWALK, and in the next Sheryl spun around to face the incoming missiles zipping at her. The sight made her stomach lurch, but she acted quickly. She mashed a targeting control on one of the sticks repeatedly as she looked at each missile. A sensor in her helmet visor tracked her eye movements, computed her intended target from the data provided, and locked on with a red triangle painted on each missile. The twin lasers flanking either side of her Battroid's head automatically leveled. She pulled the trigger as soon as the first missile was locked on, and a burst of guns and lasers shot out in a tight burst. Just one hit was enough to set it off. The remaining missiles were locked on with equal ease, and a squeeze of the trigger told her Valkyrie's fire control system to engage all of them, automatically tracking each missile like a CIWS. A moment passed and each missile was struck by bullet and laser and destroyed.

A sudden impact threw Sheryl against her harness and nearly knocked the wind out of her. The stars spun, but the Queadluun-Rau didn't. It spun with her, the battroid and the battlesuit locked together like a centrifuge. Sheryl screamed and mashed the floor pedals. All six engines fired at full burn in response. Sheryl screamed further as this mashed her into her seat and caused them both to spin faster and faster. One hand clung to Sheryl's armor while the other tried to take aim with its menacing wrist-mounted triple-barreled pulse laser. She tried to defend herself despite the rapid dizziness that overtook her, palming away the gun barrel with her mechanized hand. She flinched as the pulse laser fired, bursts of red fired aimlessly into space. Eventually something gave way with a creak and a snap amidst the rising centrifugal force of their spin, and the two parted suddenly and threw each other into their own spins. Sheryl struggled to get her Valkyrie back under control. A series of explosions suddenly happened near her, and then the Queadluun-Rau that attacked her was suddenly running, with a white plane following.

The stars and cockpit still spun even after she was certain she had stabilized her Valkyrie. It took her some seconds before she finally got her bearings. She spotted Alto on the sensor readout and moved to follow him. She had a slow start until she remembered to transform into fighter mode. She thought about thanking Alto, but she didn't want to distract him, and she really wasn't sure what happened. Alto chased the Queadluun-Rau and traded red and blue tracers, then the two disappeared behind the transport. Sheryl discovered that in the commotion she had somehow fallen on the side of the transport opposite the hull breach. By the time Sheryl came around to the hull breach herself, she found only Alto, in Battroid and hunkering down around the edge of the breach, gunpod at the ready.

"Alto! What are you-" Sheryl started, but a warning siren interrupted, "GYEH!" A stream of lasers came at her from the breach. She banked and transformed to GERWALK, then Battroid in her attempt to get out of their line of fire. She hit the hull of the ship hard on her side and felt a brief pain from being thrown against her EX-Gear harness again. Her ears, meanwhile, were greeted to the sickening, grinding sound of metal on metal. "Ugh," she whined after the Valkyrie came to a stop. She looked up and noted she had at least landed somewhere appropriate. She was alongside the hole in the hull, opposite Alto, whose battroid seemed to be shaking its head at her. She realized it was probably just mimicking Alto's own movements, as Battroids tended to do.

"They're all inside, three of them. They've got one of them just pointing guns at the breach," Alto said, "We try to go in there and there's a good chance she's shooting one of us down." Sheryl made a brief glance to the hull breach, and it was indeed only barely large enough for a Valkyrie to fly in.

"What are the other two doing?" Sheryl asked.

"I don't know, there's just the one covering the breach, but there aren't any explosions going on or anything of the sort that I can tell, and they're taking too long for them to be grabbing stuff at random. My guess is they're looking for something."

Sheryl's head went back a slight in confusion. "What could they possibly be looking for?"

"I have no idea," Alto's battroid shrugged at her, "Maybe they need something specific, or they just want what's most valuable or useful to them."

"So what are we going to do?"

"I think I have an idea. You just stick your gun barrel in that hole and put down some suppression fire."

"You..." Sheryl hesitated to ask, "You actually want me to shoot at something?"

"_Now_, Sheryl," Alto ordered.

"Umm, alright..."

With an uncertain shrug, Sheryl popped her head and gunpod up and scattered a long burst into the hull breach. Her bullets exploded against cargo containers lining the ship in neat little lines. Twin pulsing flashes of red almost immediately greeted her. Sheryl flinched back into cover when one laser pinged against her pin point barrier. Alto, meanwhile, had disappeared from where he had been.

She took a deep breath and noted to herself where the Queadlunn-Rau was, then she emerged from cover again and fired another burst directly at that location. Her gunfire took chunks out of the cargo pod the opponent was using for cover, but retaliatory fire quickly pegged at her barriers more than once. She jerked back again out of fear, and perhaps justifiably, as an alert signaled that this last burst had drained her pin point barrier again. A glowing spot on her battroid's arm drew her attention, and a closer look showed a direct hit had burned into the energy conversion armor, but thankfully not penetrated.

This time Sheryl just stuck the barrel in and fired randomly. More laser fire flew through the hull breach. It was at this moment that Sheryl saw a stream of missiles tear a new hole into the hull with a furious explosion, followed swiftly by Alto flying into the smoke.

"What the hell_?_! Alto!" Sheryl shouted in shock. She dared herself to peak over the side and see what he was doing. Alto jetted into the ship quickly and turned to GERWALK. He popped around the Queadluun-Rau's left flank and got a firing angle around its cover, and he swiftly swung his gun barrel around to his left to take it out as if expecting this. The battlesuit barely had enough time to recover from the surprise and dodge before Alto fired. His blue tracers flew past separated only by inches from the battlesuit itself, and even then Sheryl thought she saw a few hits land.

The Meltran tried to retaliate, but the lasers quickly died down to a bare whimper with the appearance of being overheated and drained of capacitor. The Meltran's engines fired and it attempted to pull away to find cover, but Alto cut inward to give pursuit. The Queadluun-Rau's chest-mounted autocannons found use in this moment, blowing chunks out of the cargo pods in her attempts to return fire. Alto was relentless, however, and he was not dissuaded from his attack. His evasive maneuvers looked more like a dance than warfare. It was graceful, purposeful, even beautiful. His Valkyrie swept along the cargo bay floor on a trail of plasma, his gunpod left a trail of spent shell casings as it fired. The next burst ripped an arm off the Queadluun-Rau before it disappeared around another container stack. With a battlecry, Alto pursued. Maybe he tasted blood. Sheryl knew that man was hard to read at times, but she had grown accustomed to knowing him pretty well. This, however, was a side of him she had rarely seen, the side of him that saw war.

Sheryl jumped into the hull breach and landed feet first on the bay floor with a dull thump. There was a light artificial gravity enveloping the cargo bay, sensors measuring at about thirty-five percent Earth normal, just a bit to help keep cargo in place. Beyond that, her sensors couldn't tell her much in the tight confines with all the containers around, and visually the bay was very dark, lit only by the light of the stars and the aura of the planet outside the pair of hull breaches. It took her a few seconds to remember how to activate the Valkyrie's light amplification. When she had, the holographic panels rendered the area around her in various shades of green, which only served to tell her that she was right now very much alone. The only sign of Alto's location were the flashes of gunfire casting shadows somewhere further down the maze of cargo containers.

Sheryl grew pale, nervous, even afraid. She cocked her gunpod against the battroid's shoulder and immediately started hugging walls. She was thankful to see that her pin point barrier, at least, had recharged. Her instinct to find Alto to protect her overrode her instinct to avoid fights, and she advanced cautiously toward the battle, the only sound the hum of her reaction turbines, the dull thud from her Battroid's every step, and the occasional burst of static over her comms. She could only guess that the bulk of the super transport was at least partially blocking communications. "Alto, where are you?" she asked quietly. Why she spoke quietly she was not sure. Even if she screamed the only person who would hear would be Alto over the radio in this vacuum. It just seemed like a good idea.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Cargo Bay, <strong>_**Naglfar**  
><em><strong>Low Orbit, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong>1244<strong>_

Hira gasped in a sharp breath as G-forces finally relented enough for her to breathe in. It was a momentary relief, then the miclone was back on her with its five-barreled gun pointed in her direction. The bird-like war machine was intent to kill. She changed directions and fired another burst of missiles, but it was pointless, the bird leaned back and used its thrust to reverse direction away while its gunpod simply shot them down. It was taking every trick she knew just to avoid being killed. Her machine was just too thoroughly outclassed, and the enemy pilot wasn't half bad either. It was only a matter of time.

"Hira!" the voice of her squad commander, Laela, was choppy over the comms. "What is your status?"

"Forget it," Hira said with resignation, "Just get the objective and go."

Nwinthe cut in next, "But-..."

"Go! I cannot hold this miclone off forever!" Hira grit her teeth as more of her precious missiles went to giving her a smokescreen. "This objective is too important for any one of us! You must succeed!"

"Then just hold him off, we will get the objective and we will all get out of here!" Hira could only smile at how Laela said it so earnestly, conscientious of morale, just as she had taught her.

* * *  
><em> "I do not see how we can win this, Hira. We are outnumbered and outgunned! This is foolish!"<em>

_ A hundred battles ago, this is what Laela had told Hira. A much younger Laela had a very pessimistic view of any situation, a new warrior with little battle experience to reassure her in her own capabilities. Hira had realized this herself when she first commanded Laela, but she had seen potential in her, so when that statement crossed Laela's lips Hira scoffed. "We are outnumbered merely five-to-one! Good odds for any Meltran of Clan Romi!"_

_ "Good odds for you maybe, Hira, but I do not have your confidence that I can take down five Regaults on my own," Laela frowned in the communications window on the Heads-Up Display of Hira's Queadluun-Rau._

_ "Then I will simply have to kill ten, all the more glory for me."  
><em>

_ "What? Ten?__ You cannot be serious! You will be killed!"_

_ "Then perhaps you should help out."_

_ "But..." Laela trailed off._

_ "Laela, we do not have to fight them alone. Rather than think of each of us having to kill five you should think of the two of us killing ten." She let that sink in for a moment, "I certainly have my doubts that I can kill ten on my own, but I have full confidence that with your help we can easily take on ten, twenty, a hundred, or more."_

_ "Now that is ridiculous..."_

_ "Do you want to be an ace, Laela?" Hira asked honestly._

_ Laela's answer was hesitant, "Well, of course."_

_ "How do you think an ace proves that she is an ace?"_

_ "By destroying many enemies and overcoming great... odds..." Laela trailed off, blinking at some realization as she looked over her scopes._

_ "I ask you again, Laela, do you want to be an ace?"_

_ "Yes, commander!" Laela shouted with renewed fire._

_ Hira smirked, "Then let's get some kills."_  
>* * *<p>

Hira's ammunition counters ticked down to zero. Hira's face fell when she realized there was no room to maneuver in the long, narrow corridor. "I have held him off as long as I can..." Hira said quietly as the miclone appeared again from around a corner in its humanoid form. Hira planted her battle armor's feet on the deck and thrust her last weapon, the pulse laser on the one good arm, at the miclone in an act of defiance. "Save our clan, Laela. It has been an honor to serve with an ace like you."

"Hira!" Laela shouted. Hira squeezed the trigger and held it down. "_Hira!_" The miclone's shield flicked about and blocked each red pulse with a burst of green. From behind the shield twisted a volley of missiles that shot down the corridor straight at her from point-blank range. She shut her eyes.

* * *

><p><em><strong> 1245<strong>_

A bright yellow flash suddenly cast shadows across the entire bay, an explosion of such ferocity that it made Sheryl Nome gasp. It had come from where the battle raged and was much larger than the previous flashes. The light of gunfire ceased in its wake. The battle seemed to have concluded with that very flash. Sheryl felt a knot in her stomach. "... Alto?" she asked hesitantly.

There was a burst of static that quickly filtered out to give the clear sound of Alto's voice. He was panting, but caught his breath quickly to speak. "Yeah, Sheryl, I'm fine. Where are you?"

"Uhh..." Sheryl looked around in an attempt to identify a landmark, "I'm inside the ship, I tried to follow you but uhh..."

"What? You're _inside?_!" Alto shouted in panic, "Damn it! Why didn't you hold your position?"

"I was coming to help you out, _Hime_!" Sheryl shouted in frustration, but even she was already starting to realize that this was a bad idea.

"Never mind! Just... stay put, I'm coming back that way. I'll find you."

"Okay," Sheryl said quietly. At that moment, a glint of light drew her eyes to her left on the opposite side of the corridor of containers. A triangle of gun barrels met her gaze from around a corner. She screamed from the shock and ducked the torso of her Battroid behind the Valkyrie's small shield. Blasts of energy immediately collided with it, her pin point barrier, her energy conversion armor, and even the cargo pod behind her, the energy burning into all of it with enough heat to melt and incinerate. She mashed the firing studs on her controls in a panic, neither aware of what input they asked nor did she care she was so busy screaming. Bullets, lasers, and missiles fired in all directions blind.

"_SHERYL!_" Sheryl could hear Alto screaming even over the subsequent explosions that pockmarked the floor, the ceiling, and annihilated whole containers and even parts of the transport's structural supports and hull. The aftermath of the destruction left her visuals cluttered with smoke, ash, and debris.

Of Alto's shout, Sheryl was too much in shock to respond or even look at the damage report which now flashed for her attention on the multifunction display. Her eyes darted widely at the at the expanding cloud of smoke around her left in the wake of her attack. She recovered enough to brace her gunpod against the Battroid's shoulder again, casting it back and forth in anticipation of another attack, but the moment her back was turned was when the attack came. Lasers from her left side down the way she had initially came. Adrenaline coursing through her veins, Sheryl slammed the floor pedals down and shot off quickly forward with an engine assisted leap over the still-present smoke. In the low gravity, the Battroid clumsily leapt several stories into the air. In her state of panic she was lost with the prospect of simply landing again, but the HUD soon warned her of something more important. Directing her attention downward, Sheryl saw the Queadluun-Rau that had attacked her first rocketing out of the smoke directly at her. She tried to dodge, or fire back, but the two collided before anything could be done. They fell together, and a sudden shift turned Sheryl into the fall. Sheryl glanced back only in time to see the rapidly closing stack of containers collide with her Valkyrie with a deafening crash. Her VF-25 tore through them, Sheryl's eyes shut with the strain of impact, the MFD flashed red with damage readouts. They both hit the floor, the Queadluun-Rau landing on its feet and took but a moment to recover. Sheryl, however, was in a pile of scrap metal on the ground only a scant few dozen meters away.

Reacting quickly, Sheryl tried to bring her gunpod up to fire again, but again the Queadluun-Rau charged her and knocked her aim aside with a clawed hand and scattered her fire to the ceiling. Sheryl lashed out with her Battroid's left arm, but the arm was simply grabbed, and in the light gravity her battroid was pulled forward. An elbow to one of the Super Packs booster engines tore the booster in two, and in an instant the Queadluun-Rau swept in behind and wrapped its arms around Sheryl in a joint-lock. Her gunpod clattered to the deck amidst the struggle. Sheryl panted in a panic as she tried to resist, but the grip was firm. Her Valkyrie was then forcibly turned around and she found herself face-to-face with the second Queadluun-Rau, sighting it just as it rounded the corner and leveled both of its triple-barreled pulse lasers directly at Sheryl, and in that moment the battlesuit seemed less like a Meltran and more like the Angel of Death. "Oh God..." Sheryl uttered, eyes locked on the battlesuit down the barrels of its guns, frozen in fear in the instant before the guns fired. But in that same instant something glinted from around the same corner, another object entering her view, long and pale blue. A gunpod, spinning, spinning, and then...

The Queadluun-Rau fired just as the gunpod collided with her, the impact throwing her aim wide. The flashing pulses left a trail of glowing circles in a line along the container wall, and the hurled gunpod hit and slid along the deck with a trail of sparks. The gleaming white of Alto's battroid followed with a flying kick before the enemy could regain her balance, the blow crushing armor and batting the Queadluun-Rau like a rag doll down the other side of the aisle and out of view. In the same motion, Alto used the battlesuit as a launch platform, stopping his own momentum with the mass of the Queadluun-Rau and kicking off again on bright burning engines directly at Sheryl and the other Queadluun-Rau. Alto let loose an unrivaled battlecry as he drew his Valkyrie's combat knife from beneath the shield, the vision of his Battroid rapidly filled her viewscreen.

Sheryl felt the pin loosen and she quickly shifted her Battroid's weight to get out of Alto's way. The battlesuit behind her let go of her with one claw to try to bring its wrist-mounted laser to bear before Alto got to them, but the impact came before any gunfire. Sheryl braced against it, the feet of her Valkyrie sliding against the metal floor with a grating screech. Alto's combat knife glowed a white-green as the pin-point barrier focused at its edge, and with a swing the knife cut through the arm holding Sheryl as if it were made of butter. Sheryl fell forward and impacted the floor with a crunch and a grunt.

She rolled over to see Alto punching the Queadluun-Rau backward with a blow that crushed one of the chest cannons. The Meltran quickly hopped back and fled down another corridor, leaving a flurry of missiles in its wake. Alto jumped in front of Sheryl before she even knew what was going on. Already Alto had his shield at the ready while the head mounted beam weapons killed any missile that happened to be on target. The flurry was largely unguided, many were launched with a solid lock and flew past the two of them to strike the container wall behind them.

It was only then, with no apparent and immediate threat, that Sheryl realized she was panting heavily.

"Sheryl!" Alto shouted, his battroid looking back over her seemingly with dreadful urgency, "Are you okay?"

"I-" Sheryl panted, "I almost got killed!"

"Tell me something I don't know!"

"Umm..." the sound of a snap drew her attention to the container stack behind them. "Those boxes are about to fall on us!"

"What?" Alto looked up, but it was too late to do anything about it. Sheryl barely had time to brace herself. The top-most container knocked Alto away. The rest smashed on top of Sheryl's Valkyrie violently. In the contest between a ten ton piece of military hardware versus cheap, economical aluminum shells, the Valkyrie was the clear winner. The contents of these shells, however, could in some cases prove to be quite the opposite. Sheryl did not see what exactly she'd been hit with, but the way she was suddenly smacked against the side of the cockpit left her with the impression of something hard, heavy, and large.

"Ugh..." Sheryl groaned. She felt as if she had just been slapped everywhere at once.

"Sheryl! Are you okay?"

"Yeah..." Sheryl groaned again and looked around the cockpit. She was fairly certain she was buried, but the holoscreens were filled only with static. Something must have been knocked loose. "But my screens aren't working."

"Alright, just stay there, they'll think you're dead or useless."

"But Alto!"

"Don't worry, Sheryl, you've done enough. I can take care of the last two by myself."

The readings on her display and the fading vibrations of a Battroid moving at a run already suggested Alto had moved away. Sheryl let out a sigh, and continued to struggle out of the debris despite Alto's warnings. She was not about to sit there helpless.

* * *

><p><em><strong> 1249<strong>_

Laela raced around the maze and mess of cargo pods desperately. "Nwinthe! What is your position? I have been cut off from you!" The destruction from battle had only served to obstruct views from ground level, as well as hinder movement without the use of engines, which could give away her position. The last missile barrage had caused Laela to lose track of Nwinthe and the white plane, and by the time she got around the wreckage, both were gone. So was the blue one, but she was fairly certain that one had gotten pinned in the debris. Laela did not have much left in terms of firepower, the fight earlier had knocked out the autoloader to the chest-mounted big bore autocannons, and the impact with the gunpod had damaged one of her pulse lasers, but she still had a sizable complement of missiles.

"I am- Nnh!" the grunt from Nwinthe and the sound of her lasers firing through the radio spurred Laela on and she fired her engines, moving as quick as she could to try to find the light of their battle. Smoke and dust kicked up from the battle made this more difficult than it had previously been.

"Nwinthe! Make for the hull breach on the port side, middle of the three! I will meet you there!"

"We are leaving?" Nwinthe barely managed to say.

"We are aborting! Mission timer is up, the miclone reinforcements will be here any minute, we have to get out of here double time! Helia! Qali! Both of you get to the extraction point! Tell Reemla's group the same if they do not copy!"

Helia's voice broke over the comms with static, "We cannot leave you behind!"

"That is an order! We are out of time! Now _go!_"

Laela's heart pounded as she moved to intercept. She could see roughly where they were, and with a set direction she could estimate where she'd meet them. _Hira... Dresi... Bala... Yvet... Not Nwinthe... Not Nwinthe..._

* * *

><p>Sheryl's Valkyrie erupted out of the debris and she took to a stand. The flickering static on the holopanels made Battroid useless to her. She couldn't fight like this. She attempted to transform to GERWALK, but a warning canceled the transformation. The MFD told her the Super Pack was twisted out of shape from damage and it was obstructing the transformation. With a sigh she pressed the jettison button. The magnetic clamps holding the Super Pack in place reversed and threw the damaged modules clear of her Valkyrie to land on the steel deck with deep, ominous thuds.<p>

She tried to transform again, and this time the system performed flawlessly. The holographic panels pulled away and left her cockpit and unaided eyes exposed to the carnage that had been wrought in the cargo bay. With the nightvision up she had not noticed that the lighting inside had gone up to about that of a full moon, lit by light reflected from the planet itself through nine or ten new hull breaches that had been made by the fighting. A few structural support braces were also ruined, not to mention much of the bay's contents that the _Naglfar _was supposed to transport safely. The _Naglfar_'s insurance company were definitely not going to be happy about this. She looked over the side of the Valkyrie's nose at the debris cluttering her feet, twisted metal and miscellaneous cargo contents including, of all things, a half-broken bulldozer. It must have been inside one of the containers.

She pulled her eyes away and read the damage report on her fighter's display. She only understood half of what it said but the swath of yellow and red all over the Valkyrie's wireframe model looked bad. Alto had told her to stay, and she found herself considering it.

But then, off in the distance, she caught a flash of light, an orange glow that burst and receded in the distance. "Alto..." Sheryl whispered. In an instant the thought of staying put was gone, and she raced her Valkyrie down the corridor in pursuit of the flashes. She still had a gunpod and the beam machine guns in her wings. So long as Alto was still in danger she could not stand idle. Despite the damage, SMS-029 flew down the corridor as eagerly as it had down the runway at take off.

* * *

><p><em> <strong> 1250<strong>_

Over Laela's comms, Nwinthe was panting. "I am in melee!" she suddenly screamed.

"I am almost there, Nwinthe! Just hold on for a few more-"

"_Laela!_" Nwinthe screamed in panic just as Laela rounded the corner and got a visual. In that instant there was Nwinthe without her footing, the enemy's knife was drawn and glowing, moving in a thrust...

* * *  
><em>"I have never been on a mission like this before," Nwinthe had told her commanding officer as they were walking to their suits. "So important, so much at stake."<em>

_ Laela gave her a reassuring nod, "I would not have picked you for this mission if I did not think you could handle it. For one so young it should be a great honor."_

_ "It is, but I have not seen much combat yet. There is so much more to see and know I am worried that if I get too many suicide missions early on that I will never get to live up to my full potential, like Hira, or Milia, or you!"_

_ Laela smirked, "You have an interesting outlook, Nwinthe."_

_ Nwinthe's face fell, "Most call me a coward for it..."_

_ "Well, I certainly do not," Laela told her firmly, then pat her shoulder, "You have great potential, and as your commander, I promise you... I will not let it go to waste."_

_ "Laela?" Nwinthe eyed her curiously._

_ Laela looked her in the eye, "I will have your back. I want to see that potential realized, and I will make sure you make it back from this alive."_

_ That statement gave Nwinthe a very odd facial expression, a strange upward twist to her lips, something that left Laela feeling strange but it felt... good somehow. "Thank you, Laela," she replied gently, "With that kind of promise I just know I'll make it back alive!"_  
>* * *<p>

… and then plunging into the armor with a gurgling scream spilling over the radio from Nwinthe herself.

"_NO!_" Laela screamed.

With a last choke, Nwinthe's Queadluun-Rau fell limply. The knife slid up her torso as she fell frictionless because of the energy field that sheathed the blade. Blood and air spilled from the gash and ran down the length of the blade and down to the floor beneath. Covered in damage and blood, the battlesuit had become Nwinthe's tomb, and standing over her, victorious, was the white Battroid who had claimed her life.

Laela's anguished battlecry drowned out the lock-on tone and even the roar of her engines and missiles. Her missile counter went to zero as her ordnance weaved on white contrails around her charging Queadluun-Rau and at her enemy. The Valkyrie looked up sharply as it noticed the attack. Quick to react, it jumped back on plumes of fire to put some distance. Chaff flew from its dispensors, and bullets and lasers flung from its weapon systems in a hurried point defense. Maybe he would get them all, maybe he wouldn't, Laela no longer cared. She thought only of crushing that miclone's puny body with her bare hands. So focused was she that she did not see the missiles exploding en masse before reaching the target, or that some had gone for the chaff or struck Nwinthe's battlesuit and annihilated her remains.

With adrenaline, she saw the three missiles that did make it to their target, two that parried against the shield and cast it out of position, and the third which tore off the craft's head and rendered it blind. As she raced forward, she saw the Battroid swell in her view, she saw it transform into its legged bird form, she saw the miclone in his cockpit and the reticule of her remaining pulse laser fall over it, her arm thrust forward in attack posture. She saw her HUD warn her of another enemy contact. She ignored it. She simply pulled the trigger for Nwinthe.

But by some twist of fate the laser never fired. A fifty-eight millimeter shell tore through the focusing lens in that very instant. Another slug went through the arm a fraction of a second later, and another, and another, stitching up the Queadluun-Rau's arm and rendering it a tangled heap of wreckage in hardly an instant. Laela's eyes went wide, but that was all she had time to do. The barrage of shells impacted her armor everywhere and tore it to pieces, and then came the stabbing pain as they punched through into her leg, her abdommen and her upper body. They tore off her Queadluun-Rau's mask and the jarring impact wrenched her neck and dazed her for but a moment. A moment in which Laela's addled mind thought of Nwinthe and that odd facial expression of hers.

Then a bullet hit her brain stem.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Cargo Bay,<strong>_**Naglfar**  
><em><strong>Low Orbit, New Frontier<strong>  
><em>_**1252**_

"Sagittarius-One to Sagittarius-Two, we're all clear here," Alto Satome said, "What's the situation out there?"

Luca replied, "The last two are in full retreat, Sagittarius-One, and reinforcements from _Battle Frontier _have just arrived."

Alto sighed with relief, "Good. Everyone form up with the transport and be ready to get back to the _Quarter_ once we get the order." Alto looked out the canopy at Sheryl's own plane, the formerly blue and white Valkyrie now burned and mangled almost beyond recognition with battle damage. Even after the loss of her Super Pack, there were several breaches in the armor and visible damage to internals, most notably in the left leg and head unit. The entire right wing had also been sheered away at some point. Sheryl stood over the last Queadluun-Rau to fall, just staring at it. Alto added, "And we need a recovery vehicle for Sheryl's plane."

"What? Is she okay?" Luca asked worriedly.

"Yeah, she's fine," Alto said, though he knew better, "I just don't trust her plane to survive atmospheric entry is all. It's pretty torn up."

Luca sounded relieved, "Understood, _Senpai._"

Alto closed the channel and looked back at Sheryl. She was quiet. Especially quiet for her. He walked his GERWALK toward hers and parked alongside. For a moment he looked over the dead Queadluun-Rau, its armor and helmet sheered away by full autocannon fire to expose the pilot underneath, riddled full of holes by the same weapon, leaving a bloodstained and mutilated body. The pilot had been a pale, porcelain-skinned Meltran, probably in her late twenties, with long blond hair and brown eyes.

Even Alto couldn't help but grimace. If she were alive, she'd have been pretty, but her pale skin was now a ghostly white, cold and covered in blood from a head trauma wound, probably another bullet hole. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes were frozen open without focus.

He looked into Sheryl's canopy and saw the fairy staring at the lifeless face. _She doesn't need to dwell on this_, Alto thought. He put in a video channel to Sheryl's fighter. The holographic screen opened in her fighter and his, each off to one side toward the other, roughly forty-five degrees off front and center. Alto looked into the screen at Sheryl, trying to draw her eye.

"Hey..." Alto started in a tone much as he had used not even an hour ago.

Sheryl, though, did not respond this time.

"Hey, Sheryl, look at me," Alto said with a bit more volume, but no less of caring, "Really, look at me."

Sheryl's eyes slowly moved to his. A depth of depression was clear in them, but Alto smiled at her in spite of it. "You saved my life back there, you know. _Arigato._"

Sheryl's eyes dropped with the barest hint of a smile.

Alto smiled more for it, "Come on." Alto nodded off to one side, "Let's go."

Alto started toward one of the hull breaches with a shift and a step, then waited for Sheryl to follow suit. It was a long moment before she did, but slowly she walked after him, not daring to look back.


	6. Ep2p3: Alibi

_**Sheryl's Penthouse**_  
><em><strong> San Francisco, New Frontier<strong>_  
><em><strong> 1645<strong>_

Sheryl Nome barely recalled what happened over the next few hours, little but a grey and colorless blur. Figures she recognized but did not see, voices drowned out except for the occasional statemented directed at her. "That was pretty rough, Sheryl", "Why did you follow Saotome into the transport?", "How are you holding up?", "That was a violation of direct orders", "Did you notice anything unusual in the bandits' actions? Were they looking for something?", "Wait, you actually got a _kill_?" It persisted through the long wait and then the expected debriefing. Voices murmuring even as they spoke clearly, figures moving through shadows in a well lit room, recognizable and yet only vaguely recognized. Sheryl herself barely spoke, and when she did her voice sounded weak and distant. And every time it came to what happened to the enemy Sheryl grew sick to her stomach.

"As for Nome, she defied Lieutenant Saotome's orders, but, given the exceptional circumstances of the event, and the fact that Saotome is unwilling to press any sort of disciplinary action, we are willing to overlook the breakdown in discipline. This time. You did get Alto out of the fire at the end there..."

The only cloudburst came with the irregular sightings of Alto Saotome, bright and glinting with the color of his hair, voice as clear as ever.

"_Arigato_, Sheryl."

Yet still the blood streaked face of that Meltran pilot flashed before her eyes and the drum of the gunpod echoed in her ears.

The snap of the door closing behind her jumped her to the present. She was in her apartment, a wide, high-ceiling penthouse located at the top of a thirty-four story building in the heart of San Francisco with tall, wide windows overlooking the bay. She slowly walked forward with one hand trailing along the wall and the counters by the tips of her long fingers. It all somehow felt different, although all of it familiar, and she knew nothing had changed since she'd left that morning. She fell onto the couch as she always did after a long day, and lay there in silence. Nothing felt right.

Suddenly her phone went off, wiggling and writhing in its unusual sort of vibrate mode for her attention. Sheryl produced it from her pocket, her grip silencing the soft, pink, fish-shaped phone's wiggling. The holoscreen joyously showed it was a call from Ranka, her picture bright and glinting with her hair. She felt relieved to see her calling. She wanted to press the button to answer, but somehow she couldn't. Her finger just hovered there. She knew full well what would come up in the conversation and she did not know what to say. Her hesitation rode straight through to the voicemail picking up.

"1 new missed call," the holoscreen now read. Her stomach lurched a little, and she waited for the inevitable followup. "1 new voicemail." Slowly, she opened the message and pressed play.

"Hey, Sheryl_-san_!" Ranka's chipper voice held a nervous and worried edge. Sheryl realized then that Ranka had heard of what happened. "Are you okay? Umm, I heard about what happened. I don't really know what to say... I just hope you're alright. I made Ozma_-nii_ tell me everything, and I'm really sorry you had to go through that, but it sounds like it all turned out okay. I just want to make sure _you're_ okay, so... give me a call, Sheryl_-kun_. Bye."

Tears welt up in Sheryl's eyes as her thumb drifted over toward the callback button, Ranka's innocent face smiling back at her in the picture. Her finger was millimeters from it, but it was a small twitch of the muscle that she could not make. The phone dropped from her grasp as she gave a sob. It flopped off the cushion to the carpeted floor, and Sheryl rolled over to cry into a pillow. If it had been Ranka instead of her, she was not sure what she would think, and that question left her without a word to say to Ranka.

She shut her eyes, and the thought of someone else crept in to mind.

_Alto..._

Pain stung at Sheryl's brain. Ranka's song rang in her ears and in her head. She could barely hear herself think or hear herself sing over the sadness and protective need she felt coming from this song.

From her vista on _Battle Frontier_'s concert deck the battlefield of space twinkled in orange against the beautiful, blue planet, their last frontier. Storms of beam weapons emerged from the planet's close orbit and left debris and plasma in the wake of their path. The radio feed she had been patched in to had reached a panic of damage and casualty reports cut off mid-sentence. She had one holowindow open, a single chase camera on _Battle Frontier _that had on her request been set to track Sagittarius-One, Alto's fighter. His fighter darted and weaved at a distance, already sporting scorch marks from battle. Sheryl could only catch glimpses of it amidst the debris and explosions, a red fighter dogging him right on his tail that he just could not shake.

Her heart pounded faster and harder, and she sang as hard as she could. She couldn't let it end like this. But no matter how hard she sang her love couldn't beat Ranka's hold over the Vajra because in the end Sheryl realized that she was very much alone. Ranka had abandoned them and Alto... For a fleeting moment she thought maybe she should ask Alto to finish what he had started to say before, because surly if a man cannot fly alone, then a woman cannot either. Maybe if he were to tell her what she hoped he would say it would dispel her loneliness. And then...

"_Sagittarius-One hit!_" shouted a voice.

Sheryl's eyes shot back to the screen and her stomach twisted in a knot so tight it almost made her sick. A hole a meter wide had been made straight through the fuselage of Alto's fighter and the very metal of the plane itself was on fire. It spun lazily with only one engine still operating and left a trail of smoke and plasma in its wake.

She pulled her hat off and held it to her heart, praying silently _Eject, Alto, eject._ Secondary explosions went off along the fuselage and sent the fighter into a spiral with pieces of it falling away everywhere. She squeezed her hat and her microphone tightly. _Eject! Eject! E-_

The fire suddenly raced up to the reactor, and its breaching sundered the Valkyrie from nose to tail into flaming debris. The shock of it silenced her pounding heart. For a second, her mind tried to reprocess what she had seen, trying to find something she missed that meant he was still alive, but as the smoke cleared and she saw nothing left but scattered pieces there was only one conclusion she could make. She'd lost him. Her grip went limp and her microphone fell onto the memory glass deck with a clatter. No matter how hard she tried to think of it in another way, each time the words repeated in her mind: she'd lost him, and the words drove her more and more to despair. She felt her voice catch on a sob with each breath as warm tears welt up in her eyes. She'd lost him.

And in a moment of supreme despair she cried out his name.

The sound of a sudden pounding that wasn't her heart shocked Sheryl out of her sleep. Sweat and tears clung to her skin, her stomach still twisted up painfully inside. She looked around in confusion and recognized her apartment, a clock told her it was now _1836_. She drew a sharp breath again as the memory of the dead Meltran warrior came back to her mind, as well as everything that had happened in the last six months.

She heard the lock click at the front door, and looked up toward it to see the door swing open.

It was Alto and Ranka. The former with a concerned look, the latter holding her stomach.

"Sorry to barge in, Sheryl," Alto said as he pocketed his key card.

Sheryl took a deep breath and held her head. She tried to calm herself down. It was only Alto and Ranka, they were probably worried, but the dream still stung at her, that one instance of memory when she really thought he was dead. It turned out he had ejected when his controls suddenly failed before the particle beam had even hit his plane, an event missed by the debris of a ship passing between him and _Battle Frontier_, and the cameras angle and distance made it difficult to see that the canopy was no longer there. The nearness of the particle blast had further temporarily jammed his EX-Gear's communications. It had taken him nearly three minutes to get a clear message off. Three agonizing minutes that she never wanted to relive again, and yet that dream was the most common, always in painfully rich detail.

"It's alright," Sheryl said as she fell against the back of the couch as her muscles gave out again. Ranka was quick to fall into her and wrap arms around her waist with surprising strength. Sheryl smiled and set an arm around Ranka in return, "I'm happy to see you both actually."

Sheryl had the feeling that Ranka felt the effect the dream had on her. Ever since that faithful final battle that hasn't been uncommon. Sheryl, like Ranka, both possessed the ability to communicate with the Vajra hive mind via fold waves and their emotions, and that had a small tendency to bleed over between the two of them from time to time, even despite the mini fold wave jammers they were both required to carry with them at all times. LAI was constantly improving the design, making it better and smaller than before. The present iteration was just small enough to fit in a pocket, and was strong enough to block most fold waves, but powerful emotions could still get through sometimes with proximity. Ranka didn't seem to mind, she even seemed to like having that sort of connection with her best friend, but by that same connection she knew how Sheryl felt about it. She was scared to death of it. And as a result Ranka was careful not to abuse it.

"Are you okay, Sheryl_-san_? You aren't hurt or anything are you?" Ranka asked worriedly.

Sheryl shrugged with a light smile, "I'm fine, no injuries to report, I got a clean bill of health."

Alto, meanwhile, stood on the other side of the coffee table. Sheryl could tell by his footsteps. Knowing him, he was probably standing there awkwardly looking away from the two while he rubbed the back of his neck trying to think of what to say.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Sheryl could feel Ranka's eyes on her, and she returned the gaze with another shrug.

"There's not much to talk about," Sheryl lied, and immediately Alto let out an exasperated sigh.

"Try looking in a mirror and saying that," Alto said with mild irritation. His next line was delivered with greater care, "You look like a wreck, Sheryl."

Sheryl's chipper demeanor faded momentarily and she sat up, with Ranka pulling away to give her space. The green haired girl sat on her knees next to Sheryl on the couch and looked at her expectantly. Alto looked at her cool headed and level, and his eye contact never broke. He could be so effective at this sometimes. She knew she wouldn't get away with anything tonight. "It was hard... and..." The image of the Meltran's face again flashed through her head on cue at her thoughts, quieting her voice. "If I were to talk about it, I would not know where to start," she could feel her voice starting to shake just for trying to give voice to her words. She knew she would break down if this continued. She stood sharply, "I'm going to get cleaned up."

"Sheryl..." Alto warned sympathetically.

"We can talk after," Sheryl added quickly.

Sheryl started to go, but Ranka piped up suddenly, "Umm, Sheryl-_san_, are you hungry? We could fix you something while you clean up!"

Sheryl looked to Ranka, and she couldn't help but smile into her red-brown eyes, "Sure."

Ranka smiled in return, "Great! Then we'll make you dinner!"

"Thank you, Ranka-_chan_," Sheryl said. She realized she had an opportunity to harass Alto about how he had promised her dinner, but she couldn't manage it just now.

"Don't take too long," Alto said.

"I won't keep you waiting," Sheryl said as she walked to her bedroom. She paused momentarily only over her shoulder, "I'm Sheryl after all."

* * *

><p><em><strong> 1843<strong>_

Alto frowned heavily at the sight before him, an open refrigerator and freezer barely half full with a menagerie of cheap sandwich meats and cheeses, microwave dinners, frozen pizzas, sodas, bottled waters, and leftovers. Ranka stood next to him and joined him in his struggle to find something that required actual cooking. It amazed Alto to think that someone who had lived for six months on the street at age seven would be this hopeless in normal life.

"Well, there's milk," Ranka pointed out.

"Great, we can pour it in a pot, put it on the stove, and serve it as soup." An awkward silence persisted for a moment as they continued their consideration. "Forget it, I'm ordering Nyan Nyan."

Alto reached for his cell phone, but Ranka grabbed his hand. "No, let me."

"Uhh," Alto uttered in confusion.

Ranka pulled out her gelatinous cell phone and squeezed off a number before holding it to her ear. Alto could just make out the phone ringing before finally there was a muffled reply. "_Konichiwa!_ I'd like to order for delivery," Ranka replied cheerily, "Huh? Oh! _Hai!_ That's me! Superdimension Cinderella Ranka Lee!" Far more ecstatic mumbling over the phone. "Mmh! Well, it's a little something of a special occasion." Another reply he couldn't make out, and Ranka had a look of trying to stay modest despite an amused smile, "Oh! You don't have to do that!" Another reply. "_Arigato!_ Alright, I'd like three number nines with everything and, hmm... an order of spring rolls. Oh, and make one extra hot!" More talking on the other end. "Delivered to the penthouse at Sandy Groves. Yeah, that really expensive one. Hmm?" Ranka paused as he asked her something, then sighed with a pleasant smile, then suddenly she began to shake her shoulders to a beat and sing, "_Nyan Nyan, Nyan Nyan, nii hao nyan. Gorgeous, delicious, and deculture!" _She cleared her throat after completing the commercial jingle as he replied happily. "_Arigato!_ _Sayonara_, Kevin!"

She clicked her phone off and spoke to Alto with a smile, "There, and I even got it all for free."

"Geeze," Alto replied, "I think Sheryl is starting to rub off on you."

Ranka blushed.

* * *

><p><em><strong>1908<strong>_

Sheryl had not exactly needed a shower for hygiene having already done so upon returning to the _Macross Quarter_, but somehow the third shower of the day had helped her in other ways. Fixing up her hair was one such way. It was a complete wreck after the mission, all matted down from the helmet and sweat, and the _Quarter_'s available hygiene products she didn't dare use, for fear they would be too harsh for her long hair and her sensitive skin. Here at home, though, with her own shampoo and conditioner, she could comfortably give it a proper wash.

But the whole time her mind drifted back to the battle, and the task of prettying herself up which she had always thought pleasant suddenly felt a little empty and petty. She had come out of the battle with the worst being a bad case of helmet hair while many of those they fought did not come back with even their lives. Instead she breezed through it on autopilot, with her thoughts turned to figuring it out in private, letting herself cry a little just as she always did when things upset her. Sometimes during her life it was the only time she could let go, away from any prying eyes and mouths that would ask questions. Then when she walked out again she would be good as new and she could keep it together the whole rest of the day.

At least that was how it was supposed to work. By the time she joined Alto and Ranka again she realized she felt barely any better at all. Dinner had just arrived from the looks of it. The table was set quite modestly with a glass plate of spring rolls and boxes of Asian carry-out sat on more glass plates. The table itself was a rose-tinted glass top, rounded, and big enough to seat four comfortably. Glasses filled with iced water, as well as fold napkins and chopsticks, sat at the side of each plate. Sheryl could quite readily tell which place was hers by finding the one which had silverware provided. An appreciable gesture, as despite her many attempts, she usually would get tired of using chopsticks at some point. Ranka and Alto had no such trouble, they had grown up with this sort of thing.

"How are you feeling?" Ranka asked.

"Never better!" Sheryl lied as she acted a smile at the two of them. Ranka was uncertain, but she could tell Alto had seen right through her with that skeptic frown on his face. She reacted quickly. "Oh, Nyan-Nyan, hmm..." she said as she looked over the small dinner table, "You know I expected better out of you, Alto."

"What?" Alto frown vanished in a spat of anger, "There is nothing _edible_ in your entire refrigerator! I can't cook a proper meal without proper ingredients, this was the best we could do on short notice."

"It will do, princess," Sheryl said with no small amount of enjoyment. As she took a seat, she said with a patronizing tone, "Thank you."

Alto glared at her, but reluctantly took his own seat across from her, while Ranka awkwardly took hers in between them. Sheryl smiled at Alto genuinely, but she really didn't know if Alto could tell that or not. Outwardly, she was playing some version of her usual self, confident, strong, and never bothered by anything, not even the prospect of making Alto seriously ticked off at her. Inwardly, she felt like a shaking leaf blown backwards by the maelstrom that was the battle that happened that day. It conjured so many bad memories that she wished she could just forget.

"I got you your favorite, Sheryl!" Ranka said cheerily, breaking Sheryl's silent trance, "Fried rice with everything and extra spicy."

Sheryl popped open her box and let the steam carry the heavily spiced scent to her nose, and she breathed it in deeply. "Ahhh," Sheryl cooed, "And hot sauce, too?"

"Of course," Ranka knocked over some red packets to her marked SUPER DIMENSION REACTION HOT SAUCE. Sheryl happily and liberally mixed it in with her meal, fried rice with a bit of greens, beef, chicken, and even shrimp. Ranka watched her with ponder as she nibbled bits of food from between her chopsticks. Alto just shook his head. They both knew she liked spicy food, and both of them had been the victim of it from time to time, just take the first bite, say it's not bad, then watch either them take a bite and promptly scramble for their drink with their tongue hanging out in pants. Better memories those.

After a brief struggle with the chopsticks she was quite happily chewing on the first bite and savoring the warm burn on the inside of her mouth. Sheryl swallowed, then spoke, "So, Ranka_-chan_, how did your tests go?"

"Oh! They went alright I think. Nanase_-chan _helped me out quite a bit with studying," Ranka replied.

"Oh, that's good. Are you confident you passed?"

"Mmhm!" Ranka replied.

"Good! I'm glad all the hard work paid off," Sheryl said, "What about you, _Hime_? I assume after the show today they couldn't help by pass you."

"Yeah, we all passed," Alto said, "Even you."

"Huh, what?" Sheryl looked up at him confusion, "Really?"

"Yeah," Alto said with a half-smile, then a shrug, "Barely, but you deserved to pass for what you did."

Sheryl blinked several times, she didn't think she had done well at all, she hadn't even expected to pass when she started it, it wasn't even what she set out to do. It could have only been for the battle, and perhaps it was only because the battle happened at all and that General felt like they needed some sort of reward for it, but she'd take it. Sheryl straightened her back and smiled cockily, "Well, I suppose they had no choice but to pass me too after saving the princess."

Alto gave a mild growl. Ranka glanced between them in confusion, her thoughts aloud, "Huh? Princess? But..." Then Ranka gasped at Alto, "Sheryl saved you_?_!"

Alto's face scrunched with embarrassment, "Well, sort of! It was a difficult situation and Sheryl happened to arrive at a very good time."

"That's amazing!" Ranka shouted as she turned back to Sheryl, "See, Sheryl? You can do it!"

"Yeah, if it weren't for me..." Sheryl trailed off as the face of the Meltran flashed in her mind again. Her face fell to her inward thoughts.

"Alto-_kun_! Why didn't you tell me about this? What happened? Did one of them have you pinned down? Was one on your tail?" Ranka barraged Alto with questions excitably, not having noticed Sheryl's mood fail. When Sheryl looked up though she saw that Alto had noticed, and his gaze was one of sympathy. Ranka looked between them and quieted up suddenly. The mood became solemn. "Wh- What's wrong?"

"Do you want me to tell her?" Alto asked to Sheryl.

Sheryl thought for a long moment. She hadn't wanted to tell Ranka, but there was probably no avoiding it now. She simply nodded.

Alto composed himself a moment and stated the facts, "We were fighting some of them inside the cargo bay of the ship we were protecting. The last one managed to blow the head off my Valkyrie and had me blind and in her sights. Sheryl arrived just in time and took a shot with her gunpod and took the enemy down."

"That's... good, right?" Ranka asked.

"The enemy pilot did not survive the attack," Alto added.

Ranka looked back at Sheryl and made the connection. Sheryl could feel her own muscles tighten involuntarily, and for once, Sheryl voiced what she thought plainly, "I _killed_ her."

"That's why you're like this..." Ranka said with a dawning realization.

Sheryl nodded only slightly. Her muscles were still tense with some kind of quiet anger directed at herself for no clear reason. Sheryl dared herself to glance up at Alto. He fidgeted with his chopsticks and leaned against one arm of his chair with a hard look to his face, but he gave no further words. Sheryl expected the worst. He just didn't want to say it.

Ranka bowed her head, but tried to sympathize, "You did what you had to do, right? I mean, that's what a soldier is supposed to do."

"It's not about killing!" Sheryl snapped as her fist banged the glass, "That isn't why I want to join the military!"

"No!" Ranka said back with a bit of desperation, "I don't mean that, I mean a soldier is supposed to protect people, right? And isn't that what you did? You protected Alto_-kun_."

Sheryl sighed and leaned back into her chair, letting her anger fade. She didn't want to be angry with them. "I suppose it is," Sheryl said softly.

Ranka watched her pityingly, while in the silence Alto's chopsticks tapped his plate in agitation. It was he who finally broke the silence. "Sheryl..." he started hesitantly, "This is why I don't want to see you in the military."

Ranka turned to him, "Huh? Why?"

"Because I think war is too terrible for her and she doesn't need to face it. Let someone else do it."

Sheryl's fist clenched, "Like who? Let the professionals handle it?" There was a hint of sarcasm and daring in her words. Alto's eyes widened a bit, taken off guard. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ranka had no idea what was referring to, but Sheryl knew Alto did. It regarded the first meaningful thing he had ever said to her, and made her realize just how helpless she really was.

Alto sighed and leaned back in his seat, "When I said that I didn't expect you to want to take up a Valkyrie..." He paused, then added more evenly, "But maybe I did expect you to say something to comfort a scared little girl or two."

Sheryl narrowed her gaze at Alto. "_Touché_, _monsieur _Alto Saotome..." Sheryl settled back into her seat and started eating again, this time with a fork, having given up on chopsticks. She could feel Alto and Ranka watching her, but she kept her gaze focused on her food, or some space past the table itself.

Alto turned to his own food, poking at it with his chopsticks when he suddenly spoke, "I was scared, Sheryl."

Sheryl stopped what she was doing and looked up at him.

He continued, "Whenever it's just me out there or other soldiers I'm scared, too, but it's a feeling of being where I'm supposed to be. Whenever it's you or Ranka in the thick of it that's when I really do feel scared. Even being outnumbered seven-to-one was not as scary as when I saw your face after the battle and I wondered if I would ever hear you sing again."

Sheryl felt her appetite leave her and set her fork down sadly. Alto looked up at her and their eyes met for a long moment. She could feel the sadness he felt now, the fear and worry all visible in his brown eyes. She wanted to pull her eyes away but she couldn't, not until she felt tears well up and she bent her head down out of reflex. Sheryl felt Ranka's hand fall on her own, gently, with a squeeze. Sheryl swallowed and reached out with her free hand to squeeze Alto's. Alto reacted by setting his chopsticks down and putting his other hand over hers.

And Sheryl cried.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Briefing Room, <strong>_**Macross Quarter**__  
><em><strong>2045<strong>_

The large screen bathed the dimly lit room with a replay of the battle at the _Naglfar_. Synchronized gun camera footage and compiled sensor data all coalesced from all the allied elements involved to give a detailed and accurate representation of the battle as it happened. Only two people sat at the conference table: Lieutenant Commander Catherine Glass, Chief Logistics Officer, and Captain Ozma Lee, Commander Air Group. Front and center was a screen displaying gun footage with a label in the bottom left corner that read:

_Gun Cam: Sagittarius-04_  
><em> VF-25F-10-LF SMS029<em>  
><em> BN: 6292379_  
><em> Cadet Sheryl Nome<em>

Catherine watched Ozma's thoughtful frown as he reviewed the battle.

"Hmm," Ozma grunted from his position leaning into his chair with his arms crossed. Cathy lowered the volume to the radio chatter from the footage via a laptop to let him speak more freely. He shrugged, "Tough situation. This means we now have a lot of problems."

"We've issued notifications to everyone to keep an eye out for that. _Battle Frontier_'s Captain has a flight of fighters on Alert 5 round the clock until further notice," Cathy explained, "They won't get that close twice, not without a flight of combat ready Valkyries breathing down their necks."

"This was no normal attack. There was a clear objective, and they had good military intelligence. They must have defolded their dropship just outside of our detection range, launched their craft and made a quick burn to put them in the right direction, then they ran silent all the way in. Somehow they managed to miss all of our patrols up until they were right on top of us. This team was small, but skilled and disciplined, unlike most Zentradi attack forces. Someone smart is running the show, and that disturbs me."

"Yeah," Cathy agreed, "The enemy seems to know us, at least a little."

"It was only a matter of time before they finally started to adapt. They've been getting their asses kicked by Valkyries for decades. Someone with innovation had to come up eventually," after a pause, Ozma added more eloquently, "A warrior society is not built upon battle, but victory. Without victory, it cannot exist."

Cathy looked at him quizzically, "Isn't that from Krridgel's book?"

Ozma nodded tersely, "It was on the reading material back when I was in NUNS."

"It still is. I'm surprised you read it," Cathy said skeptically.

Ozma shrugged, "Lieutenant Colonel McConnaughey made it mandatory for my course with him."

"Ah," Cathy replied, "Say, if that happened, wouldn't they be afraid of cultural contamination?"

"A true warrior does not let fear dictate action."

"Isn't that _also_ from Krridgel's book?"

"It was a surprisingly good read," Ozma added as an excuse, "What was the transport's manifest?"

Cathy pulled up the manifest, "Mostly industrial supplies, nothing of real note, and General Krridgel's men didn't find anything out of the ordinary. Maybe it was a commando raid to hit our supply lines, or their mission was compromised by Lieutenant Mat Warren stumbling across them and they went after the transport as a secondary plan."

"Perhaps," Ozma puzzled, then raised a brow at a particular segment of footage. "Why did Alto throw his gunpod just there?"

"It jammed up on him. LAI still hasn't worked out all the kinks for eighteen hundred RPM yet. Luca already has all this."

"Good, if this happens again we'll have to set the gunpods back to fifteen hundred. I won't have gunpods jamming up on my pilots," Ozma said. "Was there anything else?"

Cathy turned and watched him curiously, "I wanted you to see the pilot performance as well."

Ozma grunted, "Alto, Luca, and Victor all performed well. If they couldn't handle a situation like this, they wouldn't all be in Skull Squadron."

"It was Sheryl I wanted you to see," Cathy clarified.

Ozma turned his gaze from the footage to Cathy skeptically, "What are you suggesting? She nearly got herself killed at least three times. She hesitated, defied orders, and generally acted like an idiot the whole battle."

"She needs training of course, but she's a hard worker," Catherine countered, "It wouldn't be the first time you recruited someone so young and inexperienced."

Ozma was not swayed, "I had months to train Mikhail and Luca. Alto was easily twice the pilot when I recruited him. I don't have the time to train this ditz from the ground up. She can barely fly."

"She made a good shot at the end to get Alto out of a fix."

"I already have a sniper," Ozma replied, then chortled at the notion, "Sheryl Nome as a sniper, ha!"

Catherine, however, was still very serious, "She doesn't have to be a sniper. My point is maybe she isn't quite that raw. Remember, Alto has been giving her flying lessons."

Ozma chortled further, "A teenage pilot taking a girl up in a Valkyrie for 'flying lessons'."

Cathy frowned and punched in several bookmarked timestamps. A quaternary of windows appeared, each showing Sheryl in flight at various stages during the training exercises and the battle itself. "Ignore the execution, try to see instead what she's intending, and her style."

Ozma watched as Cathy indicated, and over the next several seconds his smirk faded, "So there were flying lessons involved."

"And her reaction times are good, even though she panicked. I know you don't have time to train someone completely fresh, but you're the one who also complains about the bad habits all the NUNS pilot candidates have and how long it will take you to break them. Sheryl is a bit of a tabula rasa, and what she does know is stuff you would have taught her anyway. From the looks of this footage, Alto has taught her a decent bit about flying, just not combat, and she's unpracticed, but I think you can take care of all that in the time you have, and train her right."

"Do you realize what you're suggesting, Cathy?" Ozma asked, "You suggest that I take the Galactic Fairy, the very pinup pop singer that my own sister worshipped, and make her into a combat Valkyrie pilot worthy of my Carrier Wing.""

"I am. SMS already has its fair share of unusual characters. Luca is going to inherit SMS one day, Canaria is a part-time trauma doctor and a rather aggressive variable bomber pilot, and even Alto used to be a Kabuki star whose most famous role was _Princess_ Sakura. All that before we even mention Bobby. Really, Ozma, if it were anyone else, would you be debating giving her a chance this hard?"

Ozma leaned back in his chair again and watched the gun camera footage again as it continued on through the battle. His frown was as deep as his thought.

"She just needs the right training," Cathy added during the silence.

Ozma's thoughts continued. He took a slow, deep breath, and finally he answered in a grudging fashion, "Alright, you win. We'll make the offer tomorrow. If she accepts we put her through the SMS training course, and _if _she passes that..." He trailed off. His lips tensed as if he couldn't quite bring himself to suggest the notion, but Cathy finished it for him.

"Then she gets her wings."

_**~ Episode 2 End ~**_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Location Unknown<br>Time Unknown**_

The spark of consciousness swirled about in a sea of black, ebbing in and out with nothing to entice it out. There was no cold, nor noteworthy heat, just an all-enveloping lukewarm feeling all over. Sound, such as it was, was muted, almost nothing at all save the most distant of hums, and the light from beyond closed eyelids was dim. There was no pain, only a heavy, heavy fatigue, a feeling that made consciousness want to stay away and lie in state for a while longer.

Yet the spark did linger, for something did not feel right. Moisture, submersion, liquid that had at first gone unnoticed from the warmth now seemed plain. Voices, though nothing that could be clearly made out. Pain, or the absence of it. There should be pain. Things were not as they should be. All of this was almost idly cast aside for the sake of sleep, for the need felt so great, for the battle had been so hard.

But no! The battle, it had been so near, so recent. It had been a defeat, but there was more to remember. She was a warrior even still, and even if defeated, if there was a chance at making right the mistake, or returning to another battle. If this was life just beyond her eyelids and if death was what beckoned at the back of her mind, then she would strive forward toward life.

She could not tell if her fingers moved when she commanded them to, nor hardly any other part of her body, but she at last came to note some feeling. Soreness, and things of all kinds against her skin. Some felt like apparatuses jammed into her flesh or covering her mouth and nose, or the bed under her, or something which felt like braces or perhaps restraints at her arms, waist, and legs. Other areas she couldn't feel properly at all. She knew that feeling. Wounds. She must have taken considerable injury.

She at last motioned the one set of muscles she could readily tell moving. She slowly opened her eyes. A light blurred above her, partially from the liquid she found herself submerged in, and partially from her eyes having a hard time focusing on anything right now. Perhaps also the curvature of the glass. It had to be a glass chamber, a medical chamber. Yes, she recognized it now. She had been in them many times, but she could not tell how she had gotten here.

There were figures moving beyond the glass, blurred beyond all hope of recognition, to her nothing but a shadow. She wondered if perhaps she had been rescued, by some miracle maybe she had been recovered and brought back to the ship. And then, all of a sudden, a voice spoke, sound piped through an intercom system built into the chamber.

"I am surprised to see you already conscious."

It was male. All her hopes of having been rescued were suddenly dashed. She had not been rescued.

She had been captured.

"You need your rest, but if you would indulge us with settling a little concern about brain damage, I would ask you one thing..."

She looked to the one figure which had now become motionless and seemed to simply stand there, watching her. It was hard to know for certain, but she thought she detected that he spoke Zentradi, fluently and with no translator.

He asked his question. "What is your name?"

It had taken all of her strength only to bring herself to this level of consciousness, but she summoned just a little bit more to answer the question. Her lips only barely parted, her lungs shifted barely a gasp out of its rhythm. Her voice could only barely rasp out her name.

"Hi-... Hira..."

**_See you next deculture..._**


	7. Ep3p1: Dreaming Still

_**~ Episode 3 Start ~**_

There was warmth at Sheryl's side, a warmth that pierced her skin and her heart. She was only vaguely aware of anything else, though surely it must have all still been there, the night skyline outside, the darkened room illuminated only by a television screen, the Sheryl Nome on that screen that was no doubt still singing in one of her recorded concerts, the couch she still sat upon, and the room occupied by just the two of them. What she was immediately aware of was her growing exhaustion, and the warmth that still came from her side, where her cheek rested comfortably on Alto's shoulder. She couldn't help but to doze off here and there in such conditions.

She was standing at the edge between a small park and the void of space, a sort of balcony that overlooked the stars. The lighting was always as if it were night in that park, just so anyone could come and see the stars out its skyscraper tall domed glass canopy. She was all dressed up and already smiling as her eyes wandered over the stars and picked out the ones that moved. She knew he would be coming in to land soon enough.

She heard his voice here and there in between spats of her dozing off, his wonder at why they were watching one of her own concerts, or talking about his job, or trying to have a serious conversation about whatever, but his voice, like his warm shoulder, was very soothing to Sheryl, even as he used it to point out inconvenient truths like "You know I do have work in the morning."

"If you need a bed I have one..." Sheryl cooed gently.

"You only have one bed," Alto replied, keeping his voice low.

"We only need one..."

At last she spotted them, a trio of Valkyries cruising into a landing pattern. Her hand shot up and she waved at the flight with a smile on her face, hoping he would see her. He had better, as she wasn't about to let him off guilt-free if he didn't.

"You still awake?" she could have sworn she heard him say. She gave only a soft moan of acknowledgment. Alto started talking again, something about his mother and his childhood she thought, on nightmares and a time she stayed up with him. It sounded interesting, like one of those things she would later wish she had stayed awake for, but his voice ultimately trailed off into the seemingly inconsequential dream.

Her eyes went wide as one of the Valkyries suddenly broke formation and flew up to the window. This wasn't something she expected, and that shot butterflies right through her stomach.

The Valkyrie came to a practical stop just outside the window and snapped into Battroid and spun to show its backside as it drifted lazily by. Where the Valkyrie's wings met was a highly stylized painting of a pinup girl dressed in literally only an open jacket and a hat and holding a whip. The pose and smirk of the woman left an air of sexy mischief afoot, despite little angel wings visible over her shoulders. It left just a twinge to the imagination, just her style, with the jacket not being quite open enough to show anything that would make a censor cough, and for some odd reason the word "GRAVE" written in big block letters over where her hips were. Odd touch that. What truly caught her eye though was the strawberry-blond hair, the blue eyes, every facial feature and expression and part of her form that left left no doubt in Sheryl's mind who the girl in the painting was.

It was her. Sheryl Nome.

Sheryl giggled and gave a friendly wave. The Valkyrie turned suddenly, saluted, and then was quickly off to rejoin the landing pattern. It was only then that Sheryl recognized the warmth in her cheeks. She was blushing, and she wasn't sure why. She'd seen herself a thousand times in just about every manner of way possible playing over every holographic screen from here to Earth, and seeing herself had lost its luster years ago, even if she was that scantily clad. She just ignored it. Maybe it was because it was being shown to her personally or that it was for once not something that had anything to do with marketing and money that affected her so, or maybe it was just because she had changed.

She was certain of one thing however. Alto was most definitely _not _the pilot of that Valkyrie.

The next time Sheryl stirred it was with the realization that something had quite clearly changed. The room was silent, she was now lying horizontal, everything was softer, and she distinctly felt warm all over. This was not her couch, this was her bed.

She sat up all of a sudden and blinked away the sleep in her eyes while her mind caught up with what was going on. She remembered sitting with Alto on the couch watching one of her concert vids, she realized she dozed off and he must have moved her here when he realized she was asleep. Then she remembered offering him a bed for the night. She turned sharply to look at the other side of the bed, but found it empty and undisturbed.

She sighed.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang, making Sheryl wince from the sudden noise. She was not expecting this and today was explicitly a day off. In Sheryl's book that meant not to be disturbed, potentially under pain of death, and this morning had already started on a poor note.

She reached over to the nightstand and flicked the console there for the intercomm to the front door. "Yes?" Sheryl asked with an upwards tone of annoyance that she failed to conceal. A video stream suddenly floated in the air above it, a camera feed from the front door to her apartment, but she looked away from it and rubbed her eyes, hardly appreciating the sudden bright light. Fortunately, while two-way audio was in place, the video was only one-way. She certainly didn't care for people to see her in her bedroom straight after waking up.

"Oh, sorry, Sheryl, did we wake you?" the voice of Catherine Glass replied. This puzzled Sheryl, and she bared the pain of the light enough to squint at the camera feed. Cathy and Ozma Lee both stood outside dressed formally, or well, Cathy was dressed formally, Ozma was still wearing something like business casual with a _Macross Quarter _bomber jacket thrown on.

"Yes," Sheryl hissed irritably. Very few got away with waking up Sheryl Nome and having her be pleasant.

"It's uhh..." Cathy checked her phone, "Oh-nine-fifty."

Sheryl groaned and flicked another button. The blinds flung open with a shuffle, bathing her bedroom in white late-morning light. The light stung at her eyes, but she needed to be awake anyway, and this did it quickly. "I'm sorry, what do you need?" Sheryl asked diplomatically as she rubbed her eyes.

"We came to discuss something with you, it's nothing bad I assure you, but we'd like to go over it if you have the time."

Sheryl put her hand down and looked around her still sparse apartment bedroom. "Sure, just give me fifteen minutes to freshen up. You can come in and take a seat if you like." She pressed another button that unlocked the front door.

"Thank you," Cathy replied, and she and Ozma walked in.

* * *

><p><em>It is the year 2060 AD. On the newly colonized world of New Frontier, the New UN Spacy, or NUNS, is responsible for establishing Frontier's sphere of influence and protecting its people from any attacker. <strong>Strategic Military Services<strong>, or **SMS**, was prior to the colonization a well-equipped and highly skilled private military contractor that was kept on retainer in the event of an attack by the Vajra as the Macross Frontier fleet explored the Vajra's known inhabited space. When the Vajra did attack, SMS was instrumental in guaranteeing the safety of the fleet, leading the forces of Frontier to countless victories over impossible odds from their flagship, the **Macross Quarter**. In the aftermath of the conflict, SMS was integrated into the NUNS command structure because of new legislation passed by the New United Nations, but SMS made a point of retaining many of their policies that had served them well during the conflict. As an elite group, they may choose who joins their ranks, and have some freedom in the operations they conduct and how they are conducted._

_ Ozma Lee, Luca Angelloni, Victor Dyson, and Alto Saotome are all pilots in SMS, together forming the prestigious **Skull Squadron**. As time goes on, and the losses SMS and NUNS suffered at the hands of the Vajra are replenished, the time for a new deployment for SMS nears._

_**F2: Wings of the Fairy, Episode 3 – Dreaming Still**_

_ **Sheryl's Penthouse  
>San Francisco, New Frontier<br>1005, 28 February 2060**_

"I apologize for not calling ahead, Sheryl," Cathy said to Sheryl Nome, "I had some trouble getting your new phone number."

"That's alright," Sheryl said in response. Sheryl kept a tight lid on her personal information, virtually everything had a legal gag order that severely restricted who could access any of her information to whatever she chose to let out. She now sat in an arm chair cleaned and dressed in record time across from Ozma and Cathy sitting on her couch. "Would you like a drink?" Sheryl offered to be an appreciable hostess. She thought it might make up for her earlier harshness.

"You're still too young to buy the real stuff," Ozma said.

"Ozma!" Cathy chastised with an elbow to the ribs.

Sheryl stood again and walked across the living space to the kitchen across the way. "Ehh, well I can get you something if you like, but all I have is synthahol in that area."

"Tea would be nice if you have any."

Sheryl pulled open various cabinets and peered at their pitiful contents. She reminisced that maybe if she had more time she could buy and cook some real food instead of buying raw meat and throwing it in the refrigerator only to rediscover it a month later in inedible condition. She began to shuffle through the the refrigerator next, "Uhh... no tea, sorry."

"Oh, well what do you have?"

Sheryl felt rather embarrassed to even say. "I have water, soda, and uhh... milk?"

A brief silence, punctuated with a comma by a brief mumble from Ozma. Sheryl could imagine the faces just around the corner, but opted not to look. "Water will be fine," Cathy said finally, with no apparent loss of pleasantness from her tone.

Sheryl pulled out three glasses from an upper cabinet and threw ice in them. "Anyway, what did you come to discuss? Is it about yesterday?"

"It's related, but we didn't come to discuss the past. We want to discuss the future with you."

Sheryl walked back into the living room and set out a trio of water glasses on the glass coffee table. "The future?" she asked, just as quickly taking her own off the table in a grasp by the rim with three fingers.

Cathy nodded with a smile, then turned to Ozma, "Ozma, would you like to explain?" What were these two getting at, she wondered.

"You seem to have it under control," he said in avoidance. Cathy frowned and ribbed him again. He grunted, then started clearly, "Sheryl, as you know, we've been putting SMS back together again for the last six months. It's been difficult because we have strict criteria. And _I _have very strict criteria for who joins my flight."

Sheryl's eyes focused on Ozma wider, but her mind became lost in the implied meaning during his pause for a drink of water. She pushed the thoughts back, not daring to speculate and expecting disappointment. He was more likely to be asking her of her opinion on other student pilots than asking her to be a pilot.

Once he had composed what to say next, he spoke up again, "I'll get to the point. The events of yesterday and the testimony I have heard have led me to consider you a potential candidate as a pilot in SMS."

Sheryl's background train of thought came to a screeching halt there. He had said it, and she didn't even notice her jaw go agape, or her diplomatic demeanor fail. "Wh- What?"

Cathy leaned in and spoke freely, drawing Sheryl's eyes, "You showed spirit and courage yesterday, Sheryl. You've got a long to go in terms of flying ability, but we see potential in you." Her smile was kind, even motherly.

"This isn't an invitation to join outright," Ozma continued, "It is an invitation to undergo our own training and evaluation, the same as any pilot of SMS must go through. Alto went through the same thing before he joined our ranks."

Sheryl's lips curled just a bit. She tried to suppress it and straighten out, but the butterflies in her stomach had her nervous and overjoyed. Only in her dreams did she think she would get this sort of chance. "I don't know what to say," Sheryl replied, taking a sip from her glass to wet her throat, "I'm honored to be considered for such a privilege."

Cathy smiled, "This is a big decision in your life, and I'm sure you have a lot of questions, so feel free to ask."

"What does the evaluation entail?"

Ozma answered this, "Three weeks of physical training and conditioning, flight simulation, and drills leading to a final exercise against some of SMS's own pilots."

"Your own pilots?"

Ozma nodded. Cathy chimed in after a short silence, "If we didn't think you might be able to handle it we wouldn't have approached you now."

A nervous ping went into Sheryl, but she recognized this was her chance. Despite it, she put on an air of confidence, "Alright, when do we-?"

Sheryl quickly quieted as Ozma held up a finger to signal pause, his eyes shut as he said reverently, "It is my custom that any potential recruit be given twenty-four hours to consider his or her answer to the invitation. This decision is not one to be taken lightly. We are expecting to deploy by April, and when that happens there will be no turning back. It will be dangerous, and we are not certain when we'll be returning to New Frontier."

Sheryl's mood had faded. She felt an ominous chill at her spine that she hid remarkably well, "What's this deployment about?"

Ozma opened his eyes and narrowed them at her own. "That I cannot tell you," Ozma said, "The details are on a need-to-know basis, but if you do pass evaluation, you will be briefed. I'm telling you this much only because you may have gotten used to SMS being parked here with Frontier. You deserve to know what you will be getting into."

Sheryl shrank back in her chair. She was already in deep thought over this, her gaze lowered from their own. Her head was swimming in questions, half of them she knew he wouldn't be able to answer, but her thoughts cam swiftly to Alto and his growing worries. "Does Alto know about this deployment?"

Ozma deferred to Cathy with a glance, and she spoke after a moment of thought, "He's been briefed, but don't try to draw any details out of him. This is classified."

Sheryl expected as much, and she sighed just a little, but it did help her understand a little of where Alto was coming from. "I understand."

Cathy gave her a moment, and then asked, "Is there anything else you want to ask?"

Sheryl thought for a moment, but nothing really came to mind. "No, not right now."

Cathy nodded and rose from her seat, with Ozma following her lead. She pulled out her cellphone and clicked a few keys. "I'll give you my number, feel free to call me if you have any questions later. I'll answer as much as I can." She flicked her wrist with the cell phone at Sheryl, then looked at it oddly and tried again. Sheryl simply pointed to her fish-shaped phone on the bar. "Oh," Cathy said in realization, then duplicated the gesture toward it. A holographic calling card flicked and spun across the open air and disappeared as it hit Sheryl's phone, which flopped much like a fish in acknowledgment. Cathy was momentarily quite pleased by the success of this feature, then she started for the door.

On his way out, Ozma stopped before Sheryl, "SMS is a difficult road, Sheryl. Not everyone can walk it, but everyone has their reasons for walking it. Think about what you want to do, why you want to do it, and what you are willing to gamble in battle. There is no shame in turning us down."

And with that they left Sheryl to her thoughts. It was not long before Sheryl was out on the balcony overlooking Island-One with the wind in her hair. Her thoughts were on what the future may hold, and what the past already held.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Crew Lounge, <strong>_**Macross Quarter**_**  
>Landing Bay, New Frontier<br>1144**_

"New Frontier is still buzzing with the news of the battle that happened yesterday when a rogue Zentradi force attempted to take a transport ship carrying industrial supplies. The supplies are destined for construction companies throughout New Frontier for the continuing housing and infrastructure project after the war of last year." Upon a large flat panel screen mounted at the head of the largest table in the _Quarter_'s crew lounge was a well-dressed woman presenting the news. The current subtitle was 'SURPRISING PARTICIPANT IN YESTERDAY'S BATTLE'. "The attack was fought off by a live fire training flight which was quickly redirected to counter the threat. Many are surprised that such an attack would happen in a region of space which has historically seen little of a Zentradi presence. Many more will be surprised to learn that our exclusive sources report that famous pop singer Sheryl Nome was involved in the incident as one of the Valkyrie pilots and actively participated in the battle."

"Well that didn't take long," Alto Saotome said lazily from one of the booth tables which lined the room.

"No, it didn't," Luca said from the opposite side of the booth.

Both of them turned a half-lidded gaze smoothly to Victor, seated next to Alto. "What?" Victor asked, giving one of his trademarked carefree smiles as if he was innocent.

A sudden alarm spared him further inquiry and all three of them sat sharply up at attention. "Safeguard, safeguard, safeguard," Ram said over the comm, "Combat alert, enemy contact at long range. Please stand by. Lieutenant Commander Klan Klan please report in."

At once someone stood from another booth and walked with a sure step toward a nearby intercomm. She was five feet tall on her tip toes and with her blue pigtails counted, and despite all appearances of a young girl who hadn't even hit puberty she bore the uniform and the rank of a Lieutenant Commander.

She punched the controls, "Klan reporting." Her voice was dead serious and punctual, despite its child-like pitch.

This was Klan Klan, a Meltran who had been born and raised on Frontier. By all rights she was in fact older than Alto, but in her micronized form she looked no older than ten due to some genetic disorder. Macronized, what is believed to be their natural form, was an entirely different story, a fully developed woman worthy of a pinup poster. Fortunately for her she flew modernized battlesuits like most of her kin, and that was done macronized.

Alto could only hear a murmuring in response from the _Quarter_'s bridge. Klan's reply came shortly after, "Can you patch it through down here?"

A couple of seconds later, the main screen was replaced with a tactical display. In one corner was New Frontier, with markings for the terrain and the position of the _Macross Quarter_, Island-One, and the rest of the colony. The grid was in polar coordinates emerging from the alignment of the planet's magnetic poles. There were a number of contacts on the rather wide-ranged display which represented various patrols from Valkyrie flights to capital ships in green, as well as civilian craft and satellites in blue. There was one single red blip on the screen, and highlighted in a brighter shade of green was a flight of two Valkyries on an intercept course for it, labeled Viper-3 and Viper-4. Alto recognized them as being from one of SMS's squadrons, flying VF-25As.

Alto's curiosity got the better of him, and he stood quickly from the booth, thankfully being on the outside seating, and walked up to stand beside Klan in front of the screen. "What's going on?" he asked calmly.

"A flight from Viper squadron picked up a Zentradi recon ship at long range," Klan obliged him, "Looks like a Quel-Quallie class. Upstairs wants me to observe and advise on the enemy's actions."

Ram spoke up over the intercomm, "Two minutes to weapons range."

"Are there any other ships around?" Klan asked over the intercomm speakers.

"Negative, Commander, no other contacts."

Klan nodded to herself. "Tell them to be careful, the Quel-Quallie class has some pretty impressive range and firepower for a recon ship, but that ship is almost certainly alone."

"What makes you so sure of that?" Alto asked.

Klan regarded him, "Recon ships are equipped for long-term, low-profile observation. Anything bigger would be detected, anything smaller wouldn't have the supply to linger for more than a couple of hours. Besides recon isn't considered very glorious, not enough stuff blowing up."

Alto watched the screen. All of a sudden the red blip started moving away from the Valkyries at a good clip. It quickly departed its orbit in favor of retreat. Alto thought little of it, but he felt Klan shift. He glanced over to her and found her tense, staring at the screen almost as if in shock.

"They're retreating..." Klan said in disbelief.

"Confirmed," Ram said business-like, "Enemy is in full retreat at maximum thrust, Vipers Three and Four adjusting course and speed to compensate, now at full afterburner."

"They didn't even fire a single shot," Klan noted and then started thinking quickly.

Alto tried to be helpful, "I imagine they don't favor the idea of fighting two Valkyries in a recon ship."

"You don't understand, Alto," Klan said, "The mindset of a Zentradi warrior does permit retreat, of course, but they crave battle. If they had nothing but a rock, they would throw the rock at you before they left and call it suppressive fire. I've never seen a recon ship retreat without at least trying to shoot." Alto watched as Klan shook her head, "I don't like this. I advise breaking off pursuit. Let it go."

"Uhh, really?" Ram asked, "You sure?"

"Yes!" Klan stated definitively.

"Roger that, Vipers Three and Four disengage. I repeat, disengage."

The Valkyries soon after turned themselves around and withdrew to a closer orbit. The blip of the recon ship continued flying away.

"I don't know if that was a trap," Klan uttered, "But after what happened to that pilot from _Battle Frontier_ we shouldn't take the chance with only two planes."

The blip disappeared as it left detection range. Suddenly a throat cleared itself behind them, rough and gravelly. Alto turned around sharply to find Ozma standing there. "Now that that's resolved, Alto, walk with me."

"Sir," Alto answered succinctly and followed alongside Ozma out into the steel corridors of the _Quarter_, away from the prying ears of the lounge.

It was several seconds of walking before Ozma finally spoke, "I want you ready to run training exercises first thing Monday morning."

Alto blinked, mind rushing to put two and two together amidst a sudden change of pace. "So," he drawled to buy a second, "We're finally starting that? That will give us four weeks."

Ozma nodded, "That will be enough. We have enough candidates now to fill the entire wing, _if _no one drops out."

"You found your last candidate?"

"That is what I wanted to inform you about. I have made my offer to her, yes, but the answer won't affect the training. It needs to start now."

Alto gave him a curious look. "Anyone I know?" Alto assumed by the way Ozma was talking. His only hint was that the candidate was female. There was Rachel who was already in the training, and Patricia and Florence but they had already been ruled out unless Ozma had changed his mind. The only other female pilot that he knew outside of SMS was...

"Sheryl Nome," Ozma answered.

Alto practically gagged on his tongue as his eyes snapped to Ozma, "Wh-what?" Alto's formerly relaxed stance became decidedly more tense. "Seriously?"

"As remarkable as it sounds, yes, I am serious. Sheryl is a candidate. I have given her twenty-four hours to consider before she gives her answer. Same as I did you."

Alto turned his gaze to the floor as he walked and felt his stomach tighten. Memories of yesterdays battle played out in his head. He was silent, and Ozma caught onto that fact.

"Is that going to be a problem?" Ozma asked flatly.

Alto picked his gaze up from the floor, hesitated for but a moment, then answered, "No, Sir, it won't be a problem."


	8. Ep3p2: Insomnia

**_Hangar Deck,_ Macross Quarter****  
><em>Landing Bay, New Frontier<em>  
><em>1218, 28 February 2060<br>_**

It wasn't so long after being told of Sheryl potentially joining the squadron that Alto Saotome found himself in the maintenance area of the hangar deck using a large metal tool case as a rudimentary chair. Much of where he had been and where he had walked went unremembered, unnoticed by his conscious mind. Thoughts concerning Sheryl and the battle yesterday filled his mind instead. Haunting over all of it was a single moment from that battle defined by the sight of a pipper over a Queadluun-Rau and a series of sounds, that of the roaring engines, a familiar scream, and the useless click of his gunpod when he pulled the trigger.

"This really bothers you, doesn't it?"

Alto's turned over sharply to see Klan standing near him. She looked at him soberly and nodded in the direction in front of him. He followed her nod. In front of him was a half-gutted Valkyrie, most of it scattered in pieces across its maintenance area, some burned to useless scrap. New pieces of equipment were mixed with them, all shiny and new and waiting to be mounted once the right deck hand got the time to. Valkyries were so complicated that it was hard to expect anyone to know how to fix all of it, just do regular maintenance and fix what they knew. There was no rush anyway, it wasn't like they had a pilot for it. He might have even recognized it if not for the remnants of its sky blue and white paint job still visible on what skin hadn't been removed for access, but the most telling mark was the identification still painted on the tail. It was SMS029, Sheryl's plane from the battle.

"What makes you think it bothers me?" Alto asked in an attempt at deflection. "It's her decision."

"If it didn't, you would be looking the other way," Klan nodded behind him. Alto looked over his shoulder to find the white visage of his own Valkyrie, tail number SMS007, laying in the adjacent maintenance area with a new head unit overhauled for installation. A team of deck hands were being shouted at by the Chief to make sure they get it right the first time. "You harassed the Chief about that yet?"

"I'm not harassing anyone," Alto said, then shouted back to the Chief, "Hey Chief, how much longer?"

"Damn it, Saotome!" Chief shouted at him with the same tone and volume he'd just used on his subordinates, without even missing a beat, "I told you we're working on it, now keep your panties on, Princess, be patient, and stop whining!"

Alto gave a light glare and turned back forward, "It was just a question."

Klan chuckled, "You're like this every time you get grounded. Come on, you should be happy you get a light day, plenty of time to relax from that fight yesterday."

"It's not very exciting," Alto said, "Instead of flying I just end up sitting around bored."

Klan shook her head a little and walked over to take a seat next to him on the tool case. Her little weight barely shifted the case. "Regardless, that's clearly not what's bothering you right now."

"You sure about that?"

"My female intuition is never wrong."

"Doesn't that only work on other women?" Alto asked with minimal interest.

"Close enough," Klan grinned. Alto tensed and gave her a growl, but Klan only giggled. He was never going to live that Kabuki role down. "Anyway, do you want to talk about what's got you down?"

Alto sighed and composed his words for a moment before answering. "I joined SMS to protect the people that need protecting. Now Sheryl wants to throw herself in harm's way. If she does join SMS-" Alto was cut off suddenly by Klan's outburst of laughter.

"_Sheryl join SMS_? That's the most hilarious thing I've heard all week!" Klan said in between laughter, slapping Alto's shoulder, "We'd be out of Valkyries in a week! Do you remember that time she got into a Valkyrie during that one fight with the Vajra fleet? Oh the look on Mikhail's face when he found out what happened to his Valkyrie. Priceless!"

Alto watched her flatly and wondered how long it would take for her to quit laughing long enough to realize he was serious.

"Oh wait, you're serious," Klan said. About fifteen seconds. "Why are you serious?"

"Ozma gave her the training offer," Alto explained.

Klan looked at him in confused shock, "Are you sure he wasn't putting you on?"

"He seemed pretty serious," Alto said.

"Are you sure he wasn't drunk?"

"No!" Alto rolled his eyes, "When has he ever been drunk?"

"There was that one time before you were hired, but since then... Well, there is a first time for everything," Klan gave a small fidget and turned to regard the fighter, "I guess he thinks he might be able to make something out of her. I guess the times you took her up couldn't have hurt her prospects."

"What difference does it make?" Alto asked. Ozma's opinion didn't change his. Alto knew her better than he did.

Klan regarded him for a long moment, "For you? Not much." She took a deep breath and started softly, "I know how you must feel, Alto."

"_I_ don't know how I feel right now," Alto said with an interruption.

"Then find out!" Klan shouted back, "If it were me... I don't even have to say that, it was me, Alto. You know that, and it was mine and Mikhail's mistake."

Alto grit his teeth and looked the opposite way of Klan. He sympathized with her, but he had a hard time looking her in the eye whenever his old wingman came up. He had been right there.

Klan though must have taken it the wrong way, her voice got harsher as she added, "Learn from it, Alto, before you end up learning the hard way."

He caught a waver in her voice. It drew him to look back and when he did he found poor Klan tearing up. His hand came to rest on her shoulder with a squeeze, "I won't forget him, Klan, or what happened, but I need to figure this out for myself."

"I know, I just don't want you to go through what I did..." Klan said softly.

Alto shut his eyes a moment and thought for a long time on what she had said. Then, without a word, he stood up and started walking toward the exit, leaving a baffled Klan behind.

"Wait, Alto," Klan started, "Where are you going now?"

Alto paused, and looked over his shoulder at her. With conviction, he said, "I'm going to go see her."

And with that he turned around and started to step forward only to freeze midstride when he suddenly found the Chief standing in front of him. "Uh?"

"You're going to go see Sheryl?" Chief asked, deadpan. Alto sore he saw a vein in his temple throb. Chief was definitely in a bad mood. It might have had something to do with the two bent birds Sheryl and Alto brought him he realized.

"Uhh..." Alto blinked, "Yeah?"

"Good! Then I want you to relay a message for me, and use my exact words." The Chief paused and prepared himself. His preparations were elaborate for this, transiting from clearing his voice, to shutting his eyes, flexing his shoulders, taking a deep breath, and clapping his hands together like some sort of monk. He exhaled, and was still for several long moments. Then suddenly, "_WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, SHERYL?_! This is the exact _opposite _of what I told you to do! It's in pieces! It looks like you flew it through a Zentradi fleet shoot out while singing like NEKKI BASARA during a _SUPERNOVA_! If you were on this ship's crew I'd have you helping to fix it. That plane is expensive, and no I don't care if you really do have enough money to pay for it, my hands are still the ones that have to fix it! The next time you smash up a borrowed bird like this, I'm dragging your ass back here personally to fix it yourself! I don't care _how_ many bodyguards you have, I KNOW KUNG FU!" His voice suddenly quieted to a much more formal tone, "Sincerely, The Chief. P.S. Glad you're in one piece yourself. P.P.S. My daughter loved the autographed album, much appreciated, thanks."

Alto could only stare at the man in shock, jaw agape. He hadn't heard such a dressing down from the Chief since he accidentally burned his second plane up in the atmosphere.

Chief simply put a fist up to his mouth and cleared his throat again, quietly.

Alto finally spoke. "How the hell am I supposed to remember all that?"

"You're an actor, I have faith in you," and with that Chief turned to leave, "Make sure to do the inflections and tone right, too!"

Alto was flabbergasted. He could only watch the Chief walk back down the deck, and while he did the Chief started shouting to the deck about a heavy loader being left in the wrong place. No one was nearby.

Klan's feet shuffled up next to him. "Are you actually going to tell Sheryl that?"

"After that I'm almost scared not to, but I've already forgotten what he said."

"It was something about Basara, a supernova, and him knowing Kung Fu. Also his daughter liked the autographed album."

"Yeah."

They stood there and stared for another long moment. Chief was definitely in a bad mood.

"I'm sure he'll forget all about it by the time he sees you next," Klan said.

Alto nodded, "Yeah, probably."

"But I would go now," Klan nodded along with him.

"Seems like a good idea," Alto said, and started to walk off.

There was another outburst from the Chief. Klan then added, "And I think I'll join you. Actually, let's run."

And with that the two pilots made themselves scarce from the hangar deck.

* * *

><p><em><strong>L.A.I. Private Laboratory<br>Frontier Medical Hospital  
>San Francisco, New Frontier<br>1329  
><strong>_

Sheryl Nome's stomach was already starting to feel a queasy while the large machine clanked and whirred like some technological marvel from the future. She hated these tests. She almost forgot she had them at all today what with all that had happened just in the last twenty-four hours but to her that was no excuse. She never forgot engagements and she was never late, unintentionally that is, any time she was "late" it was for sheer publicity. She prided herself on her planning and punctuality as part of her professional demeanor, so forgetting this had only left her in an even poorer mood for it.

She was not alone in the large, grey room. Sitting next to her was Ranka browsing a fashion magazine looking for something to inspire a new outfit for her next concert. Luca and others of his staff were behind a glass wall reading and manipulating all kinds of controls for the fold wave equipment filling the room. She had no idea how it worked, but she could quite plainly see part of it spinning. It surely had to be doing something. In just a short time they would shut the massive jamming device off, and then the real stomach anxiety would begin, just as it always did.

"This one is cute, it kinda reminds me of cardinals." And there Ranka sat pointing out pretty red dresses to her with a contented smile on her face and not a care in the world. Sheryl wished she could be so calm about it.

"Mm, it looks lovely," Sheryl said with her best fairy smile. She gave it a second look. "The designer might have taken the concept of a cardinal a might too literally, but it is cute."

Ranka shrugged, "Well, I'm not going to copy it, silly."

Sheryl gave a small laugh, "What's this for? This is the third dress you've brought up birds with."

"I'm trying to come up with a show for one of my songs."

"Oh? Which one?"

"Songbird," Ranka answered, "I thought something like a bird might be appropriate, but nothing is standing out to me."

"Maybe you're taking it the wrong way. Anything is appropriate if your heart is in it," Sheryl said, "Plenty of music videos don't follow the lyrics straight up."

"I always liked yours, even your visuals have a lot of feeling to them, just like your singing."

Sheryl smiled, "Thank you." She sometimes forgot that Ranka had been another one of her fans before she actually met her. "Something will come to you eventually."

"What about you? Have you come up with anything lately?" Ranka asked.

Sheryl shrugged, "Oh, a few things I'm toying with here and there, but nothing concrete."

Ranka was quiet for a moment, "It is still your dream to sing, isn't it?"

Sheryl looked over at Ranka curiously, then smiled and gave a confident, "Of course."

"We're ready to begin on this end," Luca's idealist voice suddenly said over the intercom, "But before we begin, do either of you have anything new to report? Episodes of nausea? Headaches? Dizziness? Muscle-"

"We know the drill, Luca," Sheryl interrupted, just to stop him from reciting the entire list of minor medical conditions for the umpteenth time, "And no, nothing new for me."

"Nothing for me either," Ranka said.

"Alright, good," Luca said, "Sheryl, are you still having cases of mild insomnia?"

Sheryl hesitated, but ultimately answered honestly, "That hasn't changed."

"What about the dreams?" Ranka asked.

"The same," Sheryl said in an uncomfortable fashion. "Always different, but always something that happened to me."

"Weird," Ranka said.

"Alright," Luca said. "Today we are going to be experimenting with different frequencies to test their effects. Hopefully what we learn will help Sheryl with her insomnia."

"Let's just get it over with," Sheryl said. Sheryl didn't move from her cross-legged position in the chair. Ranka, meanwhile, put her magazine down and sat up straight.

"We will be performing three tests with different settings and spectra. We will slowly adjust the settings throughout the test. It is not necessary to report at any given moment unless you feel a change. Just relax and focus on that."

"Understood," Sheryl replied.

"Test one beginning in three... two... one... mark."

There was a small change in the generator's tone at that moment, dropping to what sounded like a B-flat to Sheryl's trained ears. It then shifted down further to a C, and at some point its rhythm sped up. Focusing on musical theory wasn't what she should be doing, but it certainly kept her mind occupied and calm. Otherwise she worried her mind would drift over something more private and Ranka might catch part of it while they were so close in proximity experimenting on the fold jammers. Not that she kept much from Ranka she admitted, but if she told anyone anything she wanted to tell them it, not have it leaked like bad public relations.

"Anything?" Luca asked after a minute.

Ranka shook her head quickly, "Nope."

Sheryl added, "I didn't feel anything."

"Very well, proceeding with test two."

The machine's noise steadily rose half a scale now, and then hovered around there While Sheryl stared at the ten-foot tall cylindrical machine, Ranka's eyes wandered to and fro around the room. For a couple moments Sheryl thought it was vaguely amazing that Ranka could still find something interesting to look at in this room. They had been in here dozens of times together and the only things that ever changed were the clothes they chose to wear that time.

A chill suddenly shot down Sheryl's spine. She whipped her head over her shoulder. She just felt compelled to look there, but there was nothing. Next to her, Ranka was looking around with even greater curiosity.

"Sheryl, what was that?" Luca asked.

"I..." Sheryl started, "I don't know, I just felt something there."

"I felt it, too," Ranka said, nodding in agreement. Sheryl looked to Ranka and noted she was relatively calm. Of herself, she noted her breathing was faster now. "It was kind of like a... presence or something, just for a moment. It's gone now."

"Hmm," Luca puzzled for a long moment, "Alright, we're going to backtrack slowly. Tell me once you feel it again and we'll pause it there so you can describe it."

Sheryl started feeling that anxiety in her stomach again. It was definitely a presence, but she really didn't want to go back to it again. A tingle came to her spine, a foretaste, then it turned into a chill. Again she looked over her shoulder and about the room, but saw nothing.

"There it is again!" Ranka said.

"Holding it there," Luca replied, "Can you describe what it is?"

"I don't know exactly," Ranka said. Even she was now starting to feel uncomfortable. "It feels a little like what happened when I was in Galaxy's fold wave amplifier, but very distantly. Like something is there but I can't... quite... sense it."

Sheryl had the same feeling, like an unshakeable sense of paranoia, to her like an irrational feel of the something in the dark, even though her brain told her there couldn't possibly be anything there. Another sound had joined the machine's, almost in harmony, but it was not from any machine, and it was very far away.

Ranka continued, "It's like I feel someone is there, but I can't... quite..." Sheryl felt Ranka's voice come in her direction. She felt her eyes drawn to Ranka's and their eyes met and stared. Just stared.

Suddenly a sharp pain shot through Sheryl's head, Ranka seemed to glow a bright green, and the world seemed to fall away and yet stay still at the same time, but Ranka was there with her. All of a sudden she felt so close. She was surprised. She no longer knew which 'she' she thought about.

"Whoa," Ranka said once, but Sheryl heard twice. There were all kinds of sounds she couldn't hear now, even that one song. She could only just barely pick it out amidst the cacophony. She wouldn't have even heard it if not for the harmony with the generator, just a little tune in a minor key, but somehow it sounded wrong, not at all like how she would sing it.

_What the hell is going on..._ Sheryl thought.

_I don't know,_ Ranka thought, _This is... wow, this is amazing._

Sheryl's eyes went wide. _Wait, did you just...?_

_Hear you? Yeah, just as clear as if you'd said it aloud! _Ranka thought back at her. She never said a word, but she was kind of smiling at Sheryl and her red aura. She could see them both as plain as if with her own eyes. _What's that about a song? Wait, you're scared, why are you scared?_

She was scared by it. She was excited by it. Wait, who was scared now? _Sheryl?_

_No! Stop!  
><em>

Eyes fell on her, bright, red, bug eyes, flashing in the deep black, drawn to her. They felt something was wrong. Flashbacks of the Vajra war crept into sight, vivid as the day they happened, not only what Sheryl had seen, but what Ranka had seen, and what the Vajra had seen. _That won't happen! They understand now, there's nothing to be afraid of! _But Sheryl thoughts became lost. It drifted over Alto, Ranka, Sheryl, Grace, Ozma, Brera, and then finally the battle of yesterday, intermixed with all of it, and other battles. Maybe it was the visions of battle that conjured it, but there it was with every bullet, every G, every twist of a missile contrail, every dart of her Valkyrie, the massive, long-bodied hulk of the megatransport... The Queadluun-Raus... And the snapshot she took at the one Meltran diving for Alto... And then her face_._ Then one Queadluun-Rau turned into a hundred, a thousand, a million. The thoughts just kept meandering along by tangential connection. She lost herself to it and felt a panic overcoming her. _I'm Sheryl... Sheryl Nome... _started to repeat.

She reached out and touched the red aura's cheek. _Calm down, everything is going to be alright..._

"It's okay, Sheryl."

Ranka had said it, but their ears couldn't lie. The words came across both of their lips as one.

Where Ranka's hand touched, the green and red bled into gold. Ranka started to feel like something was wrong, too.

"Turn it off..." Sheryl said. Ranka's voice said with her, and then screamed it with her. "Turn it off! TURN IT OFF!"

And with what seemed like a violent tear the green of Ranka ripped away from her in an instant. Sheryl fell backwards with a gasp out of her chair, panting heavily along with Ranka.

Luca's voice was calling over the intercom, "Are you both alright? What happened?"

Sheryl looked up to Ranka for a moment, who looked back at her with shock. The words _I'm Sheryl Nome _repeated endlessly in her mind. After several seconds, Sheryl got up and turned to glare at the glass. "Don't do that again!"

"Uhh, alright..." Luca said with such a tone that conveyed the very grimace on her face. "But what happened?"

"If anything whatever that frequency was just amplified everything tremendously."

"Really? Wow, that wasn't at all what I expected. Umm... alright, given what happened, let's call it a day there. We'll get you both checked out and try the rest of the tests another time."

Sheryl sighed with relief, and finally got back up and dusted herself off. She saw that Ranka looked really nervous, but she decided to let her speak for herself when she was ready.

"Umm, Sheryl_-san_?" Ranka started quietly.

"Yes, Ranka?" Sheryl asked in reply as she expected to.

"I'm sorry about that, I didn't realize that would happen."

Sheryl shook her head and smiled back to Ranka, "It wasn't your fault."

"But I think I made it worse..." Ranka confessed.

"But you did so with the best of intentions," Sheryl said confidently. "Don't worry about it, Ranka_-chan_. We'll just make sure that doesn't happen again.

_Ever again._

Ranka still felt a little distant, but this time it was just normal empathy talking. Sheryl moved a tuft of her own hair behind her ear and thought for a long moment about it. "I'm fine, really. None of that stuff from the past bothers me anymore."

"Sheryl..." Ranka tried to be brave, "I think it does still bother you."

Sheryl's smile faded a little. She'd have to be honest with her, but when she smiled this time, it was more genuine, "I guess it's hard to go through that without a little change, hm? But hey, I'm still the same Sheryl."

Ranka smiled. That seemed to reassure her some. "Yeah, you're right. There was just... one thing that I didn't get."

"Hm?" Sheryl asked.

"All I caught was one short little phrase before everything got so confused. At first I thought it was a plea or something, but maybe it could have been a memory. I was just... wondering, because it really struck me as something important."

Sheryl eyed her curiously, "Well, what did you hear?"

"'Give me courage'," Ranka said.

Sheryl blinked at Ranka in surprise and felt her cheeks flush with red, "Oh, that, uhh... It was just a memory, Ranka_-chan_, nothing more."

"A memory of what?" Ranka asked unknowingly.

Sheryl hesitated, still blushing, "Eheh."

* * *

><p><em><strong>L.A.I. Private Laboratory, Control<strong> **Room**  
><strong>1346<strong>_

Fleet General Malanius Krridgel stood with his arms folded behind his back and watched as the two girls at last left the room, alas with the mild curiosity still as to what that courage thing was all about. Sheryl had left it as something she feel like talking about just now. Malanius simply shrugged it off.

Luca, seated nearby, had the unmistakable look of a man recently miffed by something. "That was a pretty mean trick you pulled," Luca said quietly.

Malanius gave a small smile, "I apologize for letting my impatience get the better of me. For someone of my age there is no excuse."

"Maxing out the power like that was dangerous, not just for them, but for everyone on this planet, too!"

Malanius offered a nod, "A fact we both only now realize in hindsight, but I further suggest that by being careful they would have ended this experiment well before we reached full power. I thus give you the data involving the device at full power."

Luca shook his head, "The ends don't justify the means."

"Do they now?" Malanius asked, "Do they indeed."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Room 473<br>Frontier Medical Hospital  
>San Francisco, New Frontier<br>1449**_

Sheryl Nome winced as the needle slid into the major vein of her left arm. Every time she thought she might be used to it and she wouldn't feel a thing, but it was still an irritant even after years and years of people taking blood. Hell, the frequency of it just made it even more irritating.

"I really shouldn't be doing this," Sheryl complained, thinking back to Ozma's offer earlier that day.

"You really should," the slightly husky voice of Canaria replied, "If you want this to stop, you should talk to your blood cells about changing type."

Sheryl sighed. _Why did I have to inherit alpha bombay? _She looked back to Canaria and found herself puzzling over what Canaria's hair style was called to keep entertained. It was red and rather fluffy, about shoulder length and every lock of hair was coiled in a tight curl, not as tight as dreadlocks, but along those lines. She was a very odd sight for a doctor, rather tall and broadly shouldered with a masculine edge to her voice. Her skin was chestnut.

Canaria started filling out a clipboard and spoke up again to pass the time, "So, I heard about the battle yesterday, sounded like good stuff from what Luca and Victor told me."

Sheryl smiled a little, "It was nothing I couldn't handle."

"Doctor-Patient confidentiality is in full force by the way," Canaria clarified.

Sheryl changed her answer, "It sucked."

Canaria chuckled, "You did alright if they weren't exaggerating."

"I doubt they saw much, I barely saw them myself, everyone was spread out," Sheryl said.

"Did you really save Alto?"

Sheryl thought of the Meltran pilot again, with blood covering her face and unfocused, staring eyes. It made her gut twist. "Sort of, I guess."

"So, what happened?" Canaria asked curiously.

Sheryl shook her head, "I'd rather not talk about it."

Canaria paused and lowered the clipboard to give Sheryl a quizzical look. "Something's bothering you about that," Canaria murmured, then spoke up more loudly, "It's the kill, isn't it? They did mention you got one."

Sheryl winced, "I really don't want to talk about it."

"Alright," Canaria nodded, "But if it did save him, hell, some of us only wish we had that kind of clear cut justification. Unless he's your ex, then I gotta ask what the hell were you thinking?"

"He's not my ex," Sheryl defended.

"Just checking," Canaria chuckled and ticked off the last checkbox on the sheet, "Anyway, I'm going to go run this through and check on your tests. I'll be back in fifteen minutes to let you know about the quick ones, then you can go home."

"Thanks, doctor," Sheryl nodded. As Canaria turned to go though, Sheryl spoke up again, "Say, uh, why did you join SMS anyway?"

Canaria turned back to Sheryl, "Frankly, to protect my son, why do you ask?"

Sheryl thought for a moment, but ultimately brushed it off, "Just curious."

Sheryl's phone went off just as Canaria left. Sheryl grabbed the phone from her nearby jacket and sighed, "What can this be?"

She gasped and just about dropped her phone when she saw it was Alto. She fumbled about to answer it quickly and posed her demeanor like she hadn't paid attention to who it was and acted all serious, "Sheryl Nome speaking."

"Yo," Alto said in some annoying fashion.

"Oh, Alto!" Sheryl smiled with the surprise she felt just a few moments ago, as if caller ID didn't exist and she really was surprised to hear his voice. "Well, this is a surprise, how are you this afternoon? Did you get to work alright?"

"Yeah, no problems there, just a little tired," Alto replied.

"Oh, where did you end up sleeping?"

"At... my apartment in bed? Why?"

Sheryl frowned slightly, though she didn't let that show in her voice. As unreasonable as it might sound, she would have rather had him at least sleep on her couch. It was partially selfish. "No reason! Anyway, why are you calling? Just checking on me?"

"Well, yeah, I wanted to talk to you."

"About what?" Sheryl asked.

"Not over the phone, in person."

"Alright, where do you want to meet?" Sheryl asked without missing a beat, but the butterflies had her fidgeting all over the hospital bed.

"Well, I still have a couple things to take care of at Alameda, how about we meet for dinner at your place?"

"We just had dinner at my place," Sheryl pointed out.

"Hey, you're the one who complains about my place not having enough security, nevermind it being on base and guarded by full-time soldiers."

"It's the soldiers I'm worried about," Sheryl said with a playful grin telegraphed across the line. Never mind that the walls at his place were figuratively made of cardboard, but that was something she'd not admit to Alto. "Alright, my place it is. Seven?"

"Sure."

"Sounds wonderful," Sheryl said softly, "Anything else?"

"No, I'll see you then."

"See you then," Sheryl said with a seductive tone, then ended the call before he could possibly say anything else just to leave him wondering. He probably made a small grunt of surprise at her sudden tone, sighed, grumbled about her antics, and shrugged it off like it was nothing but her just being her playful self.

It was a fair assessment.

"Ah," a deep yet amused voice suddenly said from the door, "I had a suspicion you and Lieutenant Saotome were seeing each other."

Sheryl looked up to find the tall and worn face of the old Zentradi General, in his full uniform as he was yesterday. "General Krridgel? Uhh, should I be standing and saluting?"

Malanius chuckled, "At ease, cadet. This is strictly a personal visit. I came to offer my congratulations on a job well done yesterday."

"I'm not sure I deserve it, I didn't do that well..." Sheryl said softly.

Malanius chuckled again, "From experience, none of us ever do our first battle." He paused to let that sink in a moment, then continued, "I understand that Captain Lee has given you an offer to be considered for SMS. Have you given it much thought?"

"Yes, quite a bit actually," Sheryl said.

"Good," Malanius said with a nod, "Well, then I will not keep you further from your other engagements. Have a pleasant evening tonight, Miss Nome."

"That's it?" Sheryl asked, blinking in surprise. She had not expected him to simply leave after she admitted to thinking about it. "You're not going to try to convince me to join or anything?"

Malanius paused to compose himself, "Someone in need of a career or looking for a way to serve his country may need convincing to join the military. Play down the dangers, play up the benefits, appeal to nationalist pride. A warrior knows all these things, especially the negatives, but needs no such convincing."

"Why not? What makes them want to do it then?" Sheryl asked.

"Because, Sheryl Nome, they cannot stand not to." And with that, Malanius made his departure, leaving a shocked Sheryl behind him with more on her mind now than when the General first walked in. She would not see where the General went, but she would hear the click of the key card operated door not far down the hall, the one that led to the restricted area, but a question of why Malanius went there did not come to her mind.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Room 477, Restricted Area<br>Frontier Medical Hospital  
>San Francisco, New Frontier<br>1537**_

Hira stirred awake from a deep and dreamless sleep, from a trail of meaningless conscious babble to sharp clarity when she remembered her situation. The white lights flooded her eyes the second she opened them and she gave a soft hiss at the strain, and flinched to put a hand up to block it out. It was a pointless gesture. She found herself bound to the bed upon which she lay. She started to struggle and yank against the binds by instinct. All she could do was sit up, an allowance of movement which she promptly took advantage of.

"Ah, you are awake," a voice said to her suddenly. Her struggles ceased as she turned to find the source. She squinted through the light and found a man standing near her with his arms crossed behind his back, a tall and broad-shouldered Zentran, bald, and rather old. His scars spoke of a soldier that had seen many battles. "I would not bother struggling, you still have no recovered all of your strength. Best not waste what little you have at the moment." The voice was familiar and spoke fluent Zentradi, she was certain this had been the man that had spoken to her the last time she was awake, but she could remember very little of that. The last she remembered was mumbling her own name.

"Who are you?" Hira asked plainly.

The man introduced himself without delay, "I am Malanius of clan Krridgel, ranked Fleet General of the New United Nations."

Hira tensed as he spoke the words of the miclones. He used words that the miclones used to describe themselves and their "clan". It only confirmed what she already knew. She had been captured. "I do not know this designation."

"Nor would I expect you to be," Malanius said. "Hira, as you have undoubtedly guessed, you are in the custody of the New United Nations, or the miclones as you may know them."

"I know who they are," Hira said dejectedly, turning away sharply. Her eyes discovered there was a window on the opposite side of her bed from Malanius which overlooked a green hillscape with an alien skyline of distant shining, grey rectangles and lights rising into the sky, miclone construction she guessed, but there was something awkward about all of it. The scenery outside seemed very awkward. She leaned to and fro as she looking out at nearby trees and other objects. In the background, Malanius was still talking.

"Really? Then you have been briefed on the miclones? That is highly unusual, but given your mission..." he trailed off as he seemed to note her curious actions, and Hira started to frown with distaste.

She turned on Malanius, "You micronized me."

Malanius cleared his throat, "There was little interest in maintaining you in your macronized form. Micronization you was necessary for the medical procedures and to expedite your recovery. You would be surprised how much faster a smaller body can heal."

Hira was unimpressed, "I demand to be returned to my proper size immediately."

Malanius chuckled, "I would dare suggest that you will regret it, as your injuries are quite severe."

"What injuries? I feel noth-" her voice caught when she looked down at her body. Most of her body was covered in wrappings and braces, some bloodied. There were needles with tubes stuck into her right arm, while her left leg was entombed in a thick, solid, vaguely leg-shaped block of white. "-ing," she finished finally.

"You are fortunate to be alive," Malanius said, "And in one piece. Most of the damage was concussive, shrapnel, and incendiary damage from missile detonations, your suit sealed properly in response which is the only reason we were able to reach you in time."

She had just enough slack in her binds to reach her arms to each other. She grabbed the wrapping off her left arm and tore it off. Underneath all the covering were hideous and severe burns all over her forearm and wrist. She stared at it in shock, "I do not feel this..."

"Painkillers, for your comfort," Malanius said calmly, "Now, I do not have much time left before the good doctor insists that you rest, so I will move on to why I have woken you. Your mission, what was it?"

Hira turned to Malanius again and eyed him suspiciously, but she remained quiet.

"You are hesitant to answer," Malanius noted.

"I was told it was a mission of utmost secrecy."

Malanius' lips twisted upward, "Discipline. It is no wonder you were trusted with such a mission. I have known many soldiers in my time, and I know many would not have hesitated to tell of their mission, either out of naivete or out of sheer glorification of their own existence." With that he uncrossed his arms from behind his back and dropped the tablet that had been hidden there onto her lap. The tablet was about as long as her forearm and perhaps half as wide and thinner than one of her fingers. Its entire surface was covered in a screen which presented data. It was a sort of datapad, a version made by the miclones which was much, much thinner and lighter than the ones her clan used. Upon it was an image which made Hira's gut twist. It was a shattered Queadluun-Rau, but not one of her squadron's. This one was far more ancient. Malanius then added, "I can, however, guess."

Hira could only turn away from the image without a word. Malanius continued in her silence, "I have known you for only a short time, Hira, and I can already tell that you are no common trooper, nor were any of your companions in this mission. That your team was sent, that your team knew of and exploited various weaknesses in this planet's defenses, that you went specifically after this one transport that just so happened to be landing at precisely that time, that _this_ ruined three hundred thousand year old Queadluun-Rau bearing _your _clan's markings was on board as undeclared cargo... Yes, Hira, I am afraid I can very easily guess."

Hira was silent for some time, mulling over what she had now been told. She knew now their mission had failed, but there was a question which came to mind that occurred to her as neutral enough. "How many survived?"

"Of your squadron? Few. We recovered what was left of nine of your companions, all deceased, you were captured, and two escaped."

"Which two?"

"They were engaged with our forces outside of the transport when you were hit."

Hira sighed, "Helia and Qali." Laela was dead that meant. Her death would be a blow that much of her clan would noticeably feel. Hira herself suddenly felt something wrong in her chest, another wound probably. This one hurt.

"They each died well, as warriors should," Malanius said, "I would hope they all died for a worthy cause, but a wrecked Queadluun-Rau from a battle three hundred thousand years ago still containing its mummified pilot hardly seems worth the price. So why were you after it? Why is it so important that so many of your sisters had to die?"

Hira turned her gaze slowly to Malanius, and with steel she looked him squarely in the eye, "I am a soldier, sir. I do not ask why."

Malanius chuckled, a curious sound, "Spoken like a true soldier. I wish I had more soldiers like you." With that he collected his datapad and grabbed a remote from the side of the bed. The remote had a single button with some miclone writing under it, and like Hira it was confined to the bed by a cable. He pressed the button, and there was a ping of confirmation. "A nurse will be along to change your bandages and see to it that you rest," he explained, and dropped the button back onto the bed, then turned to leave.

"Malanius," Hira rose her voice to catch him before he left. Malanius heard her and stopped at the door, turning to look at her over his shoulder. "What will become of me?"

Malanius obliged with an answer, "You will not be returned to your clan. Beyond that remains to be seen."


	9. Ep3p3: Wake

_** Sheryl's Penthouse  
>1900<strong>_

Like many penthouses, especially expensive ones, Sheryl's apartment had its own private elevator. It functioned as her front door, one just needed hold the key card up to the reader and it would call the elevator, which would run straight up to her penthouse where it opened onto an entry way practically already at her living room. With the cameras and the intercom she could even answer the door herself without any security concerns. No one could even break the door down, as what purpose would it serve to barge into an elevator shaft? The elevator had a further advantage in that it gave fair warning to the penthouse when it was summoned even if someone already had the key, which would give Sheryl ample opportunity to react before a visitor stepped into her apartment. With that in mind, it should have come as no surprise to Alto Saotome when Sheryl was found waiting for him at the doors when they at last slid open, and indeed it didn't surprise him, but how she had turned up left him completely shocked.

"Sh- Sheryl?" Alto asked in bafflement, "What are you _wearing_?"

With a rose clenched between her teeth, Sheryl leaned in on the arch way wearing a deep red dress that contoured her body from her high heels webbing her ankles and toes to her generously low neckline. There was a faint shimmer to it cast by the light of the elevator more so than the dim, candle-lit room beyond the threshold, and a sort of see-through veil of lavender that extended from the sides of the dress's skirt and attached to her wrists. Her hands were clad in silken gloves that came to a point at the joint between her middle finger and her palm. Her hair, usually left to hang down, was done up intricately about her head leaving her two dangling earrings in plain view. Eye shadow, blush, and lipstick matching her dress was added tastefully to her face in a minimalist fashion. Her blue eyes were half-lidded and the mouth clenching the rose had a smile that could only be described as sultry.

But the smile disappeared just as quickly as he had seen it, and with the rose stem still in her mouth Sheryl could only barely get out, "What are _you _wearing?"

Slacks. Like always.

"S- Sorry," Alto managed out, slumping a bit with his dumb-founded stare. He felt quite under-dressed now.

Sheryl plucked the rose out of her mouth and straightened herself to a stand. With the heels on she was almost as tall as he was. "Goodness, Alto, you ask a woman to dinner and that's what you show up wearing?"

"It was the closest meal available!" Alto tried to excuse himself. "Besides no one mentioned anything about formal wear."

Sheryl's eyes were still half-lidded, but the curl of her lips was now a frown. "It's implied by it being dinner," she sighed, and when the doors of the elevator tried to close she hit the edge of them to keep them open, "Well, at least you're on time, so I'll forgive you this time!"

Alto shrugged. He just couldn't figure how he was expected to know these subtleties implicitly, and he would have had to wear a tuxedo with her in that kind of dress, and those are expensive. Because of that his mind wandered over how Sheryl must feel, and his mind suddenly recalled a bit of how Princess Sakura might have been if confronted with such a situation, quite unexpectedly and quite unwanted. _He presented himself dressed as a commoner, a complete disrespect, _her voice said with haughty annoyance, and then with a bit of embarrassment, _And as for that woman she is being awfully bold__. _The potential lines came to his mind before he could dismiss her character again.

Sheryl reached forward and grabbed his hand with both of hers with the rose's stem tangled somewhere in there. Gently she pulled him out of the elevator, a smile already back on her lips, "Never mind, let's just have dinner."

She released his hand and turned around to lead him to the table, a memorable sort of event for the detail of the dress's backside, the bulk of it was cut all the way beneath the small of her back almost as low as possible, but filling that space was an intricate web of cloth like a stain glass window of a set of butterfly wings at her back about where one might expect real wings to be on a fairy. Her bare skin filled in for the glass sections. He kind of thought it was rather pretty.

Sheryl slid the rose into a thin but tall glass vase, one conspicuously filled with water but empty of flowers and placed exactly on the way to her dining room. He started to wonder at what else she had planned, and that started to concern him. Most of the time she was a very spontaneous woman, but if she bothered to sit and plan something it would come down to the most minute details and probably last all night, just like one of her shows. Of course, there was nothing to stop all this from being an entirely spontaneous planning, but if she put this together that fast it was pretty surprising.

"What are you thinking about?" Sheryl asked all of a sudden as she reached the table and rounded on him.

"Uhh, you went to a lot of trouble," Alto confessed.

"Oh, you noticed?" Sheryl said with a pleased tone and smiled, "Come on, have a seat." She presented him an open chair. The table had two tall candles on it, both already lit, and two placements set with steel platters with dome covers like a fancy restaurant. Presumably these contained food.

"Isn't that my job?" Alto asked as he went to take his seat.

Sheryl seemed just a bit more perky from that one simple question. "So you do remember chivalry," she chuckled, "Consider it a rare special service as your host for the evening." Alto took his seat while she explained, and she scooted it forward for him. "After all," she leaned in suddenly and whispered in his ear, "I have to keep you entertained."

Awkward. She must have offered his seat just so she could do that. Fortunately she might not have noticed his sudden tension as she rounded the table. He had wanted a simple evening, a casual dinner, and a candid conversation, but this was shaping up into straight up Sheryl offering him the night of his life. Alto, however, considered himself as not being so shallow as to fall for that so readily. Sheryl knew that. It was probably the biggest reason the two of them ever even became friends. He glanced at her eyes, and were it not for his background in acting he might have missed it entirely, but her eyes said she was hiding something.

And at that point his train of thought derailed onto a tangent about how the woman always made everything complicated. She was probably just teasing anyway.

Sheryl reached over the table and grabbed both of the platter covers with a hand each. "Ready?" Without waiting for his response she lifted the covers up with an extravagant motion.

"A salad?" Alto asked. With all the fanfare he had half-expected a steak dinner.

"I made it myself!" Sheryl stated pridefully as she set the covers aside on a nearby counter top. Sheryl's cooking could at best be described as random, but he could believe this. There were thankfully few ways of ruining a salad.

* * *

><p><em><strong>1955<strong>_

"I still have to wonder how he got so much financial aid for building up New Frontier," Alto Saotome added, speaking of Frontier's new president. Fortunately there had been more to Sheryl's dinner than a mere salad, but that was unimportant now. Sheryl had started to relax finally and now leaned on the table lazily, legs crossed, one heel kicked off with the other simply hanging by a toe in mid-air.

Sheryl shrugged, "Maybe they feel the colony is owed. You did sort of save the galaxy."

"No one says that but you," Alto replied with a bit of a smile.

Sheryl smiled in return. "It will be nice to see Frontier re-built, back to something like it was before. I still remember our first date and all the places we went, it was lovely," she started to trail off, smile fading, "Back before the war..."

"It's a beautiful planet, I'm sure Frontier will get back to something like it was." Alto took a look outside the window at the night sky beyond. There wasn't much to be seen at night, only a black field where even the stars were overpowered by the lights of the city skyline out Sheryl's window. Really he couldn't see much of anything but the city, but the planet really was quite lovely out that window during the daylight.

"Do you still love your sky?" Sheryl asked.

"Of course, but it means more to me now. When I flew on Galia Four I did enjoy it, but there was something that felt a little empty about it. It was a sky and nothing more, nothing really to care about under it, but here... the sky is home."

Sheryl chuckled, "You used to hate it here."

Alto smiled back at her, "I guess I found something to care about."

It was hard not to notice her blush. He suddenly realized that line turned out to be a little suggestive. He thought maybe he should explain what he really meant by it, but then he thought... what _did _he mean by it?

"Alto..." Sheryl started, then she took a deep breath before she stated firmly, "Ozma offered me to join SMS's pilot training." She continued, "I'm going to say yes."

He tensed. He opened his mouth to say something almost immediately, but ended up just and he grit his teeth while he composed himself. He had expected this to come up, even wanted it to, but this came all of a sudden. Finally, he spoke, keeping his calm, "I know he offered it, and I had a feeling you would want to say yes, that's the whole reason I'm here."

Sheryl's warm emotions suddenly faded. "What? _That's _the whole reason you're here?" Sheryl suddenly turned angry, "I see. So, are you going to tell me to give it up again?"

Alto grit his teeth again, annoyed by her anger at him caring, although he considered maybe that was not the best choice of words. "I'm here because I'm worried!" Sheryl softened up at that, and turned her gaze from him. When she didn't immediately respond he lowered his voice and asked, "Why do you always have to get this way, Sheryl?"

She looked up at him again with sad blue eyes right at his. There was an answer there, somewhere, but she looked away again before he could find it. "It always seems like you being worried is the only reason why you're ever here," she admitted softly.

She gave him plenty of reason to be worried. "Is that what this is about? Do you just want to spend more time with me or something?" Alto asked.

"Is that so wrong?" Sheryl asked back.

Alto blinked and stammered an answer with his stiff jaw, "No, I guess not, but it's a pretty stupid reason to join the military."

"It's not the only reason," she whispered.

The tension of anger seeped up again, not that he wanted to be angry with her. Her hunched over form had her facing off to her right side, away from him and the window. Stubborn? Lost? Confused? Perhaps she was all of it, but it was one of those times that Sheryl's emotions were hard to gauge. The war had affected a lot of people, but somehow it seemed as if Sheryl had been affected most of all. Betrayal probably had that effect. Yet still it left him angry, because he knew at least that Sheryl thought she could do it, and like always with these things she was stubborn about proving that she really could. "Do you _have_ to prove this to yourself?" Alto asked, "Maybe you could do it, Sheryl, but I won't be there if you do!"

Sheryl's head whipped up at him with but a single, barely whispered word in shock, "What?" Her heartbroken tone made Alto vaguely wince. He really needed to explain that to her.

With a sigh he rose from the table and slowly walked around it to her right side. Her eyes followed him the whole way like a deer in headlights. He knelt on both knees and put a hand on her shoulder, and another on her own hand in her lap. She was tense. "Sheryl, let me explain," he started gently, "I didn't want to say anything until I was a hundred percent sure it was going to happen." Sheryl looked at him curiously, eyes hanging on his every word. He looked back at her and continued, "I put in for a transfer. Off of _Macross Quarter_."

Sheryl shot up from her chair and looked down at him, still in shock, "You're... You're not going on the _Quarter_'s next deployment."

Alto looked up at her, "No, I'm not."

"But," Sheryl started, "But you're-!"

"I'm still a pilot," Alto answered pre-emptively while she stammered and he got back to his feet to stand in front of her. "I'll be a test pilot if everything goes smoothly. LAI is considering candidate test pilots for a new project, Project Roland, it's a development project for a new Valkyrie. They're building the first prototype now. I already spoke with Luca and Ozma about it and they're going to recommend me to the project leads." A second of silence passed, with the two of them looking into each other's eyes. "I'm staying home."

Sheryl watched him for a long time, and lost herself all of a sudden. She threw her arms around him, but without a word. Alto couldn't tell what she was thinking, but hesitantly he returned her grasp with his own arms. Her cheek came to rest against his shoulder, but as the seconds ticked by, she kept her silence. Only her arms around him and the force they exerted gave any indication that she was listening when he finally decided to speak again. "Just promise me one thing, Sheryl," Alto started, softly, almost giving up, "If you do go through with this and you don't make it through training, let it go. If you keep this up past that you'll only be putting yourself in danger and you won't be helping anyone. Just let it go..."

Sheryl was silent, but he could feel her breathe. She was probably still thinking about it.

"Really, Sheryl," he repeated, "Promise me you'll let it go if that happens."

Her fingers clenched just a little, and finally she gave an answer, a barely whispered, "I promise."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Frontier Medical Hospital<br>1029, 3 September 2059  
><strong>_

Sheryl watched out the window of the hospital at the distant horizon. Like Eden and Earth and Galia IV the horizon stretched seemingly into infinity where the blue of the sea suddenly met the blue of the sky. She turned her gaze up to the sky, a blue ether tufted with dramatic clouds reflecting white from a late-morning sun that shined over everything. There had never before been a more beautiful sky for Sheryl, not once. The battle was over and everyone had a happy ending. Even her. It was staring her in the face.

"Hey, Sheryl," Alto said all of a sudden. Sheryl turned to face him with a bright smile. "So uhh... what did the doctors say?"

"Clean bill of health as expected!" Sheryl chirped, too happy to care how girlish she sounded, "The V-type infection has entirely migrated to my stomach, where it can do no harm, just like Ranka's."

The tension in Alto's shoulders gave way with relief. "I'm glad," Alto smiled. He came and sat next to her and shared in the view of the sky. "It's a beautiful sky."

"It is," Sheryl nodded and did not hesitate to take Alto's shoulder as a headrest. She could think of no possible way to make the moment any better. The night was over, it was the dawn of a new day, and she was happy. "I'm surprised you aren't still flying in it."

Alto chuckled, "I'll get around to it."

"You are going to take me up like you promised, aren't you?" Sheryl asked.

Alto made an annoying little whine, "When did I ever promise that?" She thought it was cute.

"Stipulation of your birthday present!" Sheryl said, "You never did take me up on Galia Four, but since the planet blew up, I forgive you. Still, it's only fair that you make up for it now."

"That's going to be a little tricky with my plane being a smoldering pancake fifty klicks south-east of here."

Sheryl laughed, "EX-Gear is fine."

Sheryl could feel his smile on her, a warm feeling that made her heart feel more full than it had ever felt before. There was no question about it...

She was happy.

"Hey, Alto, what about that new wingman of yours? Did he find his gift yet?"

"What?" Alto asked in confusion.

"You know, Maruyama, that fanboy in your squadron with nose art of me on his Valkyrie's wings. Really, Alto, you should know who I'm talking about," Sheryl said with a short laugh, then explained, "I snuck an autographed album into his locker before I went on stage. He must not have gotten it yet or I'm sure he would have found some way to shout his gratitude at you." Sheryl turned her gaze from the window to smile over at Alto.

But Alto wasn't smiling anymore. His face had fallen from the sky to the sea.

Sheryl's smile faded, "What's wrong?"

He turned his gaze to hers. "Sheryl..." Alto started solemnly, "He didn't make it."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Sheryl's Penthouse<br>0737, 29 February**** 2060**_

It was with those words that Sheryl suddenly realized that she was awake with a half-empty heart. Her eyes opened onto her dark bedroom, and slowly she sat up and waved her hand at the bedside lamp to make a dim light. She winced only briefly at the sudden lighting change, but soon looked over to the other side of the bed, hand feeling but finding nothing but sheets. She looked at the empty side of the bed sadly for a long moment, then she got up and started her daily routine on auto-pilot in her sky blue nightgown.

The dreams were still fresh on Sheryl's mind, all of them were, memories she couldn't forget. It was supreme irony that on the day of her appointed fate she gave up to death and lived while another fought to live and died. She had wanted for them all to have their happy ending and to give everything she had left for it. She expected that not everyone would make it in that last battle, but she hadn't expected to live to see it herself. It would have been enough to die knowing she had given her all, but when she heard of that pilot being killed in action she wondered if she really had given her all.

She saw the framed picture of Alto on her dresser, sitting on the edge of a dock in his school uniform wistfully smiling up at the sky. He had tried to tell her that it wasn't her fault, a V-9 Ghost had caught him mid-transformation, there was nothing she could have done about that, and if someone had to die Maruyama would have wanted it this way, that she had lived instead. Maybe it was true.

Alto was always a comfort to her. She couldn't imagine how life would have been if he had really died during that battle, especially if she hadn't. He had stayed by her side the entire war, and threw just about everything aside to do so. He was always by her side, wasn't he?

Why was she looking at her bed now?

She reached for a drawer, the one that was hard to open. It rarely opened. Inside an album sat atop a framed picture of an exuberant, younger Sheryl with an older, blue-haired woman wearing glasses and a slightly embarrassed smile. She picked up the album. Alto had told her Maruyama was quite annoying with all the times he asked about her, or compared the next battle to the battle that had made Minmei famous in Space War One, or the times he just wanted her autograph. Apparently he had stayed a fan even when Ranka's popularity had eclipsed her own, and really believed that they would all make it with Sheryl singing them on. She had figured why not write something special on the last album she ever expected to sign? And so written across the sleeve booklet with the last of her prismatic ink was "For my biggest fan, who always believed in me," along with her trademark signature. It had still been in his locker after the battle, right where she had left it.

He never even saw it.

She drew the curtain of the massive glass window built into the wall of her bedroom. The sun was only just now starting to peek from the distant horizon over the warm sea, casting a play of shadow and light across the cityscape. She looked at how the skyline had changed because of the war, thought of how she had changed herself because of the war, and how much had been lost and how much had been gained. Now when she looked out at Frontier she knew that she had somewhere she could call home and a new life ahead of her. This was her happy ending. It was everyone's happy ending. But war still happened, and just like every home she had ever had before, this one could one day be gone, too.

But she wanted to keep this one.

And as much as she might want to follow Alto's advice on this, just to relax and live out her happy ending, she couldn't let this go. It wasn't just about proving she could do it. She once promised herself to give it her all for everyone. Alto, Ranka, her fans, Frontier, everyone. She still had more to give.

She picked up her phone from a table and dialed.

"Good morning, Miss Nome, how are you?" Catherine's voice answered, "We were going to come see you in an hour."

"I'll save you the trip," Sheryl said, "I've made my choice."

"And?" Cathy asked.

"Tell Ozma..." Sheryl started, and took a deep breath, "I'm in."

**_~ Episode 3 End ~_**

_**See you next deculture...**_


	10. Ep4p1: Breathe and Dive

_**~ Episode 4 Start ~**_

From the cockpit Sheryl Nome looked out at the curvature of the distant horizon, a blur from blue to black all around her. Fluffs of white like cotton puffed up in the blue far beneath her, voluminous cloud banks the size of a metropolitan area that from here looked no larger than cotton swabs held at arm's length. She was up so high that despite it being daylight with the rising sun at her back, the sky above her head was black and scattered with stars.

Off the leading edge of her VF-25F's right wing was another VF-25 with the same configuration as she had, an F model with a basic FAST pack. The FAST consisted of a pair of conformal missile and fuel pods grappled to the shins just in front of the tailpipes, a couple of extra countermeasure pods on top near the rudders, and an ablative armor panel over the shield. In addition, there was an arrangement of ordnance mounted on swiveling underwing pylons, including two pods carrying extra micro missiles, six Cobra high maneuver smart missiles arranged in trinities on the outer side of each wing, and finally under each turbine a single Jackhammer anti-ship missile, nothing but a long, large cylinder with a rocket nozzle.

"Raptor-One. Flight in position and holding at angels ninety," the voice of her wingman and flight lead came over the channel. Her name was Rachel.

"Raptor-Two," Sheryl acknowledged in keeping with protocol.

"Skull-Three," Luca suddenly came on, "In position at angels four hundred. Raptor flight, we have full surveillance of the target area in place. Target is a Quiltra-Queleual class landing ship. It was damaged by anti-orbital artillery and forced to land about seven hundred nautical miles from Island-One in a valley of mountain range eight."

"Mountain range eight?" Sheryl asked.

"Affirmative, Raptor-Two, mountain range eight."

"That's a terrible name for a mountain range."

"It's temporary, we're still trying to name everything."

"Cut the chatter already!" Rachel yelled, making Sheryl frown, "Raptor-One ready to rock. You better be ready over there with all that talking, Raptor-Two."

"Raptor-Two ready, _Ice Queen_." Ice Queen was Rachel's callsign, and Sheryl used it with a derogatory tone. Rachel had been antagonizing her ever since they met. She liked to call everyone by their callsigns all the time, so the rest of them started calling her by her own in a not-too-pleasant fashion hoping it would give her a taste of her own medicine. Rachel, though, never seemed to mind.

Ice Queen frowned at Sheryl in the holographic display, "Just don't screw this up, _Fairy_." And Fairy was Sheryl's callsign, and Rachel used it with similar derogation. Rachel had started calling her that almost immediately and it stuck with the other pilots because of how she acted, and because of it being a reference to her stage name 'The Galactic Fairy'.

Skull-Three sighed, "Don't you two start fighting yet, save it for the enemy. Scans indicate a breach on the ship's port side near one of the engine compartments, aim your Jackhammers there and secondary explosions should destroy the entire ship. Watch out for anti-air fire and small craft. You are clear to engage at your discretion, Raptor flight. Weapons free and good hunting."

"Roger that. Raptor-Two, on my mark set throttle to full military power, dive on the target, and follow me in. Three... two... one..." Sheryl took a deep breath. "Mark!"

On cue, both planes inverted and dove. The muddled blue and cotton clouds started to expand in front of Sheryl's canopy. The altimeter started to fall while her air speed grew, both quickly. Mach three came and went and she was already approaching Mach four. Behind her the variable sweep wings of her Valkyrie automatically adjusted themselves back to better suit the air pressure and speed. The speed at which all this was happening started to disturb her. This was by no means a tourist trip where she could take her time and marvel at the scenery, her altitude had been cut in half before she even realized. Now Mach five was coming up.

"Target range in fifteen seconds!" Rachel shouted. "All sensors up! Target acquisition gear active! Jackhammers selected and locking on!"

The altimeter was ticking off thousands of feet faster than the clock ticked off the seconds. Much faster. The clouds that had seemed so very small and distant suddenly filled her canopy, and she could now see between them a mountain range containing the way point they were aiming for, then just as suddenly she could make out the mountains individually, and the valley, and finally the ship, a three kilometer monster, as just a speck in the middle.

"Ten seconds!"

An alarm suddenly went off and she checked her multifunction display. "Uhh," Sheryl started, feeling a wave of nausea pass over her, "I'm being painted."

"Raptor flight," Luca pitched in, "Massive energy build up coming from the target."

"BREAK! BREAK! BREAK!" Rachel screamed.

Sheryl banked hard to the left, away from Rachel who banked right. Barely a second later a beam of energy wider than her fighter's wingspan shot from the target and passed between the two of them so close that she could feel the heat on her skin through the flight suit. Other beams shot out from the same source at various deflections in a scatter into the skies, vaporizing entire clouds. Sheryl quickly straightened out her flight to avoid accidentally banking straight into another beam.

"Pull back and hit the deck!" Rachel ordered

With shaking breath Sheryl banked into her new course and dodged between the great columns of light as they pulsed across the sky, seeking the Valkyries out as best they could. She watched their movement and avoiding the directions the turrets were turning as best she could. Her new course was taking her south-west of the mountain range toward low, densely forested foothills, and they were coming up awfully fast. She quickly thumbed a control on the throttle for a quick transformation to GERWALK, then quickly pulled her feet up with the attached leg pedals and squeezed the afterburners. The legs of the Valkyrie shot forward and pivoted the exhaust of the reaction turbines around almost a hundred and eighty degrees while the afterburners cast a brilliant purple gout against the air. It was like a makeshift thrust reverser. The force of the deceleration threw her against the straps so violently it just about knocked the wind out of her, but soon enough Sheryl was skimming the treetops in GERWALK at a little less than the speed of sound with a level flight, leaving a trail of upset birds disturbed from their roosts in her wake.

"Holy _shit_! They're using their anti-ship guns on us!" Rachel yelled with a hurried breath, "Why would they _do that?_!"

Sheryl was breathing quickly herself, "What are you asking me for? From my position it almost worked!"

"Whatever, fine, we'll go in _low _and fast and use the mountains for cover to get inside their turret tracking radius, then blow the ship and get out of here. Skull-Three, can you give us a path through the mountains?"

"Roger that, Raptor-One, stand by."

Down below the mountains, there was no way for the capital ship to track them, and its guns weren't powerful enough to shoot through a mountain of solid granite. Based on her navigation system, they had ended up about fifty-four kilometers away from the target, give or take a couple hundred meters to accommodate for the error in the inertial navigation system. She took the opportunity to find Rachel and take her position back on her wing, flying level in GERWALK at five hundred feet traveling at about Mach 0.6 and falling.

"Took you long enough," Rachel stabbed once Sheryl got back in formation. Sheryl just rolled her eyes. She was probably just pissed off at almost getting killed and decided to take it out on her.

"Raptor flight, uploading course data now," Luca said. Almost immediately a new set of navigation points appeared on Sheryl's HUD. She followed the path with her eyes between two mountains, up and over the ridge line into the target's valley.

"Alright! Let's go, Two!" The legs and arms of Rachel's VF-25 folded neatly back into Fighter mode in the blink of an eye, and with a sudden burst of acceleration she pulled ahead significantly. Sheryl thumbed the transformation control on the throttle again and followed suit.

"Be careful of your speed in the pass, it gets narrow in places," Luca advised, "You also have incoming. Gnerl fighters are coming over the mountains."

The sensor screen on her multifunction display generated a complete sphere of data around her fighter and displayed every contact and obstruction within a two hundred kilometer radius in its present mode. The terrain was rendered faithfully from the plains behind her to the mountains ahead, and what she couldn't see was filled in by the data integration with Luca's recon plane watching over the entire battlefield. At the center was the default marking for her own fighter, along with a blue blip for Rachel's fighter and even one for Luca's fighter way above their heads. A group of green contacts appeared over the ridge line, and when Identify Friend or Foe finished looking at them a moment later the radar screen quickly painted them red. Hostile. There were maybe a dozen in total, all in a tight formation.

"This'll be easy," Rachel said, and she promptly banked to put them right in front of her aircraft's nose. Sheryl moved to follow and the little boxes of the enemy contacts on her HUD came to center straight ahead of her. "Selecting Cobras, locking on. Two, you take the left, fire when locked."

Sheryl followed Rachel's lead and selected the high-maneuver smart missiles. At this range and given their tight grouping she couldn't visually identify the targets with the helmet mounted systems, so she had to punch in the targeting commands on the multifunction display's touchscreen. Red triangles were painted over each target on the HUD with data spilling hit probabilities, range, and closing speed. By the time she declared the targets they were already well within the weapon's launch acceptable region so Sheryl pressed the fire button on her stick. Her's and Rachel's missiles went off almost at once, but just as quickly her Valkyrie pinged her about an enemy lock on, and then incoming missiles. She felt combat nausea hit in full force again.

"Two, incoming missiles, evading!" Sheryl shouted and banked hard to the left.

"What_?_!" Rachel yelled angrily with missile warnings going off in her own cockpit, but she didn't break off, "We're twenty klicks out! Our missiles don't go terminal until they're ten klicks from the target! Damn it, Fairy!"

Sheryl winced, realizing suddenly that this might have caused her missiles to lose their lock. The sensors of her Valkyrie were good, but much of it was mounted in the nose or the head unit. In fighter mode, it was the nose that it relied upon, and the best data came from directly in front of the Valkyrie. Her systems indicated a loss of a target lock. She thought to try to turn back and re-acquire but by then it was too late, the missiles had zipped to within ten kilometers. In the terminal phase the missiles relied purely on their own electronics to reduce the possibility of communications jamming or guidance system hacking scrambling its target information and sending it off course, while the weapon's proximity often gave it as good of a picture as the Valkyrie at that range. Without a solid target lock going into the terminal phase, however, the missiles were wild and sought out their own targets. Built-in IFF kept the missiles from locking onto friendlies, but the tight grouping of the targets meant that Sheryl's careful target designation had been pointless. The missiles she fired locked onto whatever they wished, even if another missile was already tracking it or it was one of Rachel's targets. In some cases two or three missiles went to a single target, where one would have been sufficient given the weapon and the targets. The missiles struck with fire and fury, destroying only eight of the twelve targets.

Meanwhile the enemy missiles tracking Sheryl merely fizzled out of fuel two kilometers behind her Valkyrie several seconds after the initial warning had been issued. Rachel had waited until the last few seconds to bother dodging, and did so easily in textbook fashion. This also put her much closer to the enemy formation than Sheryl was.

"Two, get your ass back over here!" Rachel shouted. Sheryl banked over hard and pushed the throttle all the way forward, burning hard to get back to the fight. Boxes on her HUD marked the last four fighters and Rachel's VF-25. There was a pinprick of yellow light and one of the boxes disappeared. "Or you know, just let me kill everyone, whichever," Rachel added cockily. Sheryl just rolled her eyes again. VF-1s were a match for these fighters fifty years ago, a VF-25 was just plain out of their league.

Sheryl's fighter zipped into the furball. She pulled the throttle back and pressed the air brakes and banked in to pull in on one of the Gnerl's tails as it tried desperately to get at Rachel, who was easily outperforming her would-be pursuer. Up close the Gnerls were little more than glorified missiles themselves, nothing but a compact craft with an enormous cockpit suitable for the giant Zentradi, a three-barreled laser cannon for a nose, a pair of missile tubes and an enormous set of engines that belched fire out its rotating nozzles. The Gnerl had no wings to speak of, being primarily intended for space combat. The entirety of its maneuvering was provided by its oversized engines which kept it flying with full thrust vector control. A set of maneuvering jets didn't hurt either.

The Gnerl seemed to catch a whiff of her and bolted off at full speed. Sheryl shot off after it with the pipper of her gunpod bouncing around after it with each maneuver. With the target marked and directly ahead of her, the Valkyrie's sensors could easily ping it to gain every detail of its course, speed, and range and feed it into the targeting systems, which then adjusted further for Sheryl's own movement, orientation, and even gravity and air pressure to fine tune the predicted impact point of the fixed mounted gunpod if fired. All Sheryl had to do was get that reticule over the target and pull the trigger. She had been taught to be patient with it and fire only when the shot looked good so as to conserve ammunition, not to fire crazily whenever the pipper happened to slide near the target for a few nanoseconds.

She rolled and banked with her opponent, and when pipper met her target, she pulled the trigger. The raspy hum of the Gatling gun pod put an extra vibration through her Valkyrie for just a moment, and the burst of blue traces raced out from underneath the nose of her fighter out at her target. The bullets hammered the right side of the Gnerl, tearing apart its armor like wet paper. Fire just as suddenly burst from the side and with a thud the entire craft exploded in a shower of debris. She banked away, but still felt her Valkyrie give a small buck as the shockwave hit the wings.

Sheryl couldn't help but grin at that, letting out a breath as her heart pounded. She was proud of herself for having done that by herself. When she had her wits about her again, she checked her sensors to find the next target, but found only Rachel still flying. She was diving back at the deck and rushing for the mountain pass again. Apparently she had taken the other two out in the time it took her to get that one. "Let's go, Fairy!" That was certainly a buzz kill. Sheryl chased after Rachel. "That took longer and more ordinance than it should have." Rachel let out a breath herself.

Sheryl's Valkyrie started giving her warnings to pull up as the terrain beneath rose to meet them from low foothills to mountainous cliffs. It made Sheryl uncomfortable with the speed at which they were traveling. She kept having to adjust her course to avoid getting too close to the ground or the sides of the mountain pass.

"Can't we slow down a little?" Sheryl asked.

"If we don't hurry, they'll have a hundred fighters scrambled just for us!" Rachel shouted back. Sheryl grit her teeth and kept her throttle up as she tailed Rachel, following her movements as a sort of guide to her own piloting. "Twenty seconds to the valley, preparing for strike! Watch my back, Two."

"Looks clear so far," Sheryl said as she glanced over the ridge line and squinted at a glint of light, "Skull-Three, do you see anything up there?"

"Negative, Raptor-Two, I think you're all clear."

"Oh good, for a second there I thought I saw a- _OH SHIT!_" A field of scattered laser beams suddenly erupted from the trees at the top of the left ridge, aiming for both Sheryl and Rachel. Sheryl tugged the stick upward once, then down as more beams sought to meet her flight path. Her path became erratic inside the tight cliff face in that panicked moment. She hit the transformation back into GERWALK, hoping the better maneuvering would aid her at this altitude, but during the transformation a laser clipped one of her micro missile pods and breached the ordinance. Safety systems attempted to jettison the pod before it detonated but it blew up far too close to her Valkyrie. The blast caught the Valkyrie and sent it spinning out of control. Before she could recover the Valkyrie hit the cliff side, bounced off and finally hit the ground at high speed. The Valkyrie skid along the grassy soil over hills and threw trees, kicking up splinters and mud in all directions. Sheryl was bounced around within the cockpit like a rag doll, leaving her panting half from shock and half from the wind being knocked out of her when the Valkyrie finally came to a stop.

Sheryl held her head and opened her eyes. The multifunction display bled red with significant damage and the engines were now dead silent. "Damn it! _Damn it_!" Sheryl cursed and desperately punched in responses on the touchscreen to the computer's queries to get the Messiah back online.

SAFETY PROTOCOL 34-9B BLOCKS ENGINE STARTUP. OVERRIDE PROTOCOL AVAILABLE. OVERRIDE? _Yes!_

70% POWER AVAILABLE, OVERRIDE FOR ADDITIONAL POWER IS AVAILABLE BUT NOT RECOMMENDED DUE TO HIGH CATASTROPHIC FAILURE RISK (98% PROBABILITY). OVERRIDE? _No!_

"Will you just start already!" Sheryl shouted at it. The turbines finally started to spin up again, and STARTUP flashed on the screen. She glanced out the canopy above her, where came the roars of engines, weapons, and explosions. She saw Rachel zip overhead at low altitude and full afterburner, struggling to avoid a flock of missiles chasing her close behind. A barrage of micro missiles fired from Rachel's wing pods, zipping on silver contrails down onto the ridge line and covering the area with explosions. The beams shot from many fire points, all out of sight from Sheryl's location, just indeterminate points beyond the edge of the cliff. They had not seemed to bother checking on Sheryl yet. Maybe they thought she was dead.

READY, the multifunction display read with a chime. With power restored, Sheryl limped her plane back to its feet. A loud thud in front of her suddenly drew her attention, and she looked up out the canopy to the source. It was standing there at the crest of a hill like a classic image straight out of a movie on Space War One, and it was as ugly as it was ominous, little more than a ball of armor atop skinny chicken legs with two laser turrets jutting out of the top like strange antennae. It was perhaps the most fearsome visage of the entire Zentradi arsenal: the Regault battle pod.

And now its lasers were pointed at Sheryl.

Sheryl leaned her GERWALK to one side and threw the shield of the Valkyrie's left arm up just in time to block the lasers. Simultaneously she brought the gunpod up and fired from underneath the blocking shield and, using the camera mounted on the barrel to see her target, she took aim and with a quick pull of the trigger blew chunks of armor off of her target and mowed it down with ease.

The Regault always was more of a cannon fodder unit.

"It's going to take more than that to bring me down! I'm Sheryl No-" Sheryl's catchphrase was interrupted by a warning siren. She looked over her left shoulder just in time to see a spread of missiles hit her Valkryie with a flash of firelight. Then there was darkness.

Then a message on the multifunction display that flashed "DEAD" in red.

Sheryl sighed, "Damn it." She punched the MFD to release the simulator pod enclosure. With a hiss the hatch opened, letting light flood in from the room beyond. Sheryl climbed out and pulled her helmet off. Her long hair fell in a clump of sweaty and matted hair, and it felt absolutely atrocious.

She was met at the threshold between catwalk and simulator pod by someone unexpected, a tall, young man with a spare build wearing a uniform. She instantly recognized him, but she could have from miles away.

"Alto?" Sheryl inquired in surprise. It was a pleasant surprise, but after that showing she almost felt worse realizing he had probably watched the entire thing, especially with that slight smirk on his face and his arms being crossed. "Were you watching?"

"Yeah," Alto nodded, and stepped back to let her out, "Up until you got killed again."

Sheryl stepped into the florescent light proper of SMS's simulator room, an old hangar outfitted with a large set of full immersion simulator pods, each equipped with its own powerful artificial gravity generator to accurately simulate G-forces. "So, what did you think?" Sheryl asked.

"Eh," Alto grunted vaguely as he led her to the head of the simulator pods, where lie the observation area, a series of computers and screens set up on a raised platform overlooking all of the simulator pods.

"'Eh'? What's that supposed to mean?" Sheryl asked as she followed.

Alto shrugged, "You kinda sucked."

"Sucked_?_!" Sheryl was indignant, "Now you listen here, _Hime_! I'll have you know that I've improved significantly since I first tried that scenario."

"You got vaporized by the capital ship guns thirty seconds in so that's not saying much," Alto replied, "At least you took my advice on ammo conservation."

"See? Improvement!" Sheryl said with a smile.

"_What the hell was that, Fairy__?_!" Rachel's voice suddenly shouted from behind a different simulator pod. "I told you not to screw this up and you-!" she paused suddenly when she came around the corner and saw Alto, "Oh, good afternoon, sir!" Rachel snapped a sharp and slightly embarrassed salute. Rachel was a commissioned officer like Alto, but she had only just recently earned her commission as an Ensign with her graduation from Mihoshi, while Alto had already served a year and been promoted up to full Lieutenant.

Alto threw one back, "At ease, Ensign, get over to observation for debriefing."

"Sir!" Rachel said. She gave a quick glare at Sheryl right before she turned around and trotted quickly down the line, eager to leave them behind.

"She's such a prima donna," Sheryl muttered to Alto.

"She's always been that way, but she was the best female pilot in school," Alto murmured back. "But you know her father is a Rear Admiral," he added with a little smile.

Sheryl snickered a little, "It shows."

"Anyway, that's another time you've been shot down in that mission. You're going to have to do better, Sheryl, you don't get second chances at life." At that, Sheryl gave him an amused peering at. Alto caught it and rolled his eyes and added, "Usually..." He continued, "Standard NUNS practice is eighty percent success rate at level five. You can barely complete the mission at level three."

"It's a start!" Sheryl said confidently, "With a little practice I'll be just as good as everyone else. I mean where did you start, Alto?"

"I suppose I wasn't much better when I started. I was always set to level five."

Luca's head suddenly shot up from behind one of the consoles at the control area, "Actually, Mikhail started you at level seven."

"What_?_!" Alto shouted in complete surprise, "That thing was set to level seven the entire time_?_!"

"Huh?" Luca started, then suddenly he started laughing, "You mean he never told you?"

"That son of a-!" Alto grit his teeth, "He told me it was always set to level five! _And _he kept telling me newbies in NUNS could beat it easily!"

Sheryl started laughing at that herself. Luca chuckled, "Wow, he really was trying to break your ego."

"Oh?" Sheryl leaned in toward Alto with a sweet tone, "So you had a bit of an ego problem going into SMS, hmm?"

"It wasn't like that!" Alto turned his head away from her, "Also you need a shower."

Sheryl frowned in a deeply unamused fashion, but she said nothing. He was, she admitted, quite right. Even the flight suit was starting to feel sticky.

A voice cleared her throat from up ahead, and they both turned to see Rachel standing there none-too-pleased and tensely looking away from the pair. Alto waved Sheryl off to stand next to Rachel, and Sheryl did so, not that she was particularly comfortable doing so with Rachel's mood. Alto then cleared his own throat before he started, "Alright, you both pretty well botched that one. As a tip, Gnerls are pretty maneuverable at high speed or in space, but at low speeds in an atmosphere the enemy pilot will have to fight a stall throughout the entire battle, while Valkyries will have no trouble at all flying. I hope you both learned from your other mistakes and do better next time. You should know what those were."

"Sir, if I may ask for an elaboration on that?" Rachel asked with a hint of annoyance.

"Ensign Stafford, your main mistake was in not covering your wingman when she was down."

"I was engaging the targets!" Rachel objected. "If she didn't hit the damn wall-!"

"That's beside the point! She's your wingman and no matter what happens you need to cover her! If you had position yourself you could have easily dropped the attackers that came after Raptor-Two when she crashed, but instead you put most of your missiles into targets on the cliff who no longer had a line of sight with Cadet Nome's Valkyrie, and this indirectly contributed to the loss of that Valkyrie and her death. That missile barrage would have splattered her across half the mountainside! A better tactic would have been to drop your altitude to Sheryl's position and used those missiles for suppression fire while you assessed her condition."

Rachel tensely growled through her grit teeth, "Yes, sir. Noted, sir." Sheryl glanced at her sideways. She was tense, and her lip had a menacing twitch. It was not entirely a result of being questioned. She could tell from her face that what she really wanted to say was this is all Sheryl's fault, and not just the mission but this debriefing as well. Most didn't hesitate to say that Sheryl was Alto's girlfriend, and this had a lot of people skeptical of her. Sheryl knew it, and what's more Alto knew it, which is why she braced herself for what was to come next.

"And _Sheryl_!" Alto turned his voice on her next, it sounded worse than it had against Rachel, as if that anger had been building up from dressing her down, "Missiles aren't lasers, when fired from twenty kilometers out at those speeds they are going to take a little time to actually get anywhere near your fighter, and in addition you broke formation from your flight lead on top of it. You heard the ASWR and launch warning and you panicked. Cobras aren't fire and forget like micro missiles, they can fly further than their sensors can pick out targets and have to rely on your Valkyrie's sensors for guidance and target acquisition until it gets close enough to lock on themselves. They scared you off with their own missiles and caused your missiles to lose their lock. As Rachel demonstrated, the best tactic was to maintain course until the missiles went terminal, _then_ evade. Think about the situation in advance, what your opponent might do, and what options you will have to counter it before it happens. Furthermore, standard procedure is that you inform your flight lead of your situation and maintain formation until directed to break off unless there is an _immediate_ threat to your Valkyrie. Instead you ended up wasting most of your missiles and putting your lead at risk."

"Sorry, sir," Sheryl said in a sheepish tone. She realized she had screwed that up, but that was what training was for, and she would know better next time. At least that's what she told herself.

"You should be apologizing to Stafford, not me, but sorry isn't going to cut it in the real world. You can take another shot at that simulator mission, but in a real mission you only get one shot. This is what? Run thirty or forty for you, Sheryl? I know you've been running the simulator a lot these past few days. How many times have you failed so far?" Alto asked.

"Umm..." Sheryl cringed. She'd lost count.

"Luca!" Alto looked over to the small man at the console, "How many times for Sheryl?"

Luca turned to the console and took a mouse in hand. After a few clicks he answered, "Twenty-nine, _Senpai_."

"Out of how many?"

"Also twenty-nine."

Alto considered for a moment and asked more curiously, "How many did she end up dead in?"

Sheryl looked away in embarrassment before Luca even answered: "Uh, all of them. Oh no..."

"What_?_! Luca! You let her pass twenty-five without the traditional signing?" Alto asked in annoyance.

"I didn't expect her to have reached it so fast!" Luca defended himself.

"Err, signing? What's that?" Sheryl asked, lost as to what they were talking about. Rachel was snickering next to her, as if she were in on the joke.

"Go find them, quickly!" Alto shouted at Luca.

Luca yanked open a drawer to check, "Uhh, they're not here. Someone must have-"

"AH-HA!" a high pitched voice suddenly shouted from behind. Sheryl gasped in surprise as small yet surprisingly strong hands clasped around her shoulders and something fell over her neck. "I knew that was coming up!"

Sheryl turned sharply to see what appeared to be a pig-tailed, blue-haired preteen oddly dressed in combat fatigues with gently pointed ears indicative of Zentradi ancestry. It was, of course...

"Klan!" Alto said in surprise, then noticed Sheryl's neck, "Oh, there they are."

Sheryl blinked and picked up what had been hung around her neck. She looked down at the weight to see that they were all plain white laminated cue-cards made into a necklace with small, light chains clipped to each corner. There were roughly a dozen, all of them with a short phrase written on them in various languages and alphabets. "What is this?" Sheryl asked as she picked through them until she finally paused at one she could read, written in French: _Je suis mort – _In English, "I'm dead?" she asked in confusion.

"Hee!" Klan snickered with a wide grin, "Congratulations on reaching twenty-five deaths!"

"Twenty-nine," Alto corrected, "Luca let her miss the milestone."

Klan shrugged, "Never mind that."

Sheryl grimaced at the tacky signs, and started to take them off. "I don't want to wear this!"

"You have no choice!" Klan said, clasping her hands on Sheryl again to keep the signs on, "You must wear them for the entire day! No exceptions!"

"I wouldn't be caught dead with these on!" Sheryl said ironically.

"Rules are rules, Sheryl," Alto said aloofly, "After your first twenty-five deaths in SMS's simulators, you get the signs for a day. Oh, by the way, would you look here for a second?"

"What, why?" Sheryl turned toward Alto, and when she saw past her wave of strawberry-blonde hair at him holding his phone up to her she went wide-eyed with shock. The phone clicked before she could react. She promptly lunged for it. "_Give me that!_"

"I don't think so." Alto stayed frustratingly calm despite Sheryl pouncing him against the rail of the catwalk. He extended his arm over the side, and Sheryl did not hesitate to press her body right against his in her struggle to get at his phone. Unfortunately, Alto's arm was a bit longer than her's and it was just out of reach.

"Stupid Alto! Give it here!" Sheryl shouted, growing increasingly frustrated as the others laughed while she stretched for it. "That picture must never be allowed to reach public consumption!"

"Cut it out, I'm trying to send this to Ranka," Alto said as he tried to punch commands into his phone one-handed.

"_Don't you dare_!" Sheryl stretched all the harder for it.

"Oh! Don't forget to send me a copy, Alto!" Klan giggled.

"Can I have a copy, too, sir?" Rachel asked.

"Maybe," Alto replied.

"_I'll destroy you, Alto Saotome!_"

"Annnnd send." His phone beeped.

A few seconds later and somewhere else entirely, Ranka checked her phone, and giggled.

_**F2: Wings of the Fairy, Episode 4 - The Winds of Change**_


	11. Ep4p2: If In Your Dreams

_**Frontier Medical Hospital**_  
><em><strong>San Francisco, New Frontier<br>0946, 8 March 2060**_

Upon an upper floor overlook, with sunlight streaming through a towering panel of glass, Malanius Krridgel watched the hospital lobby area far below. The reflective whites and blues of the hospital's construction scattered the sunlight throughout the entire building, bringing as much of that sunlight into the adjoining corridors as possible. Patients, doctors, and visitors moved about between doors, hallways, and glass elevators in the lobby and his own vantage point, as well as the similar floors above and below him.

The very hospital itself permeated an air of peace and tranquility, no doubt designed with that specifically in mind. Here was a place of calm, where one could go for recovery, where the weak would go unjudged, where a soldier could come to rest from hard fought battle.

For Malanius, while it was refreshing to come to such a place or walk among its gardens from time to time, he hoped that he would not meet his end in such a place. It seemed somehow antithesis.

He pushed away from the fourth floor railing and turned to walk down one of the corridors. As he passed the staggered rows of doors to patient rooms the lighting steadily changed from the natural light of New Frontier's sun to the artificial light of fluorescents struggling to match the same radiance. A room with two security guards posted outside brought a brief smile to his lips. A scant twenty feet after he reached his intended goal, and with perfect timing as the good doctor was just finishing up a brief conversation with one of the interns.

"Ah, doctor, how is our patient?" Malanius inquired.

Canaria turned to him, and if she was annoyed by his well-timed intercept she did not let on. She answered professionally, "Physically speaking Hira Romi has fully recovered from all of her injuries. Mentally however..."

A scream and a crash from behind Malanius interrupted her. "_Stop sticking me with those yakh needles!_"

Malanius twisted around to observe the commotion with a raised brow out his good eye. From the guarded room he had just passed, a nurse suddenly emerged, the poor woman running frantically from the room with squeals of terror, her escape hindered only by her own high heeled shoes. Half a step behind her another woman emerged, this one in a rather immodest hospital gown with pale skin and black hair in a rough paige cut. In her hand appeared to be a syringe, presumably the offending needle. The guards reacted quickly to halt the latter woman's progress at the door. Malanius recognized her, of course, as the source of the needle complaint shouted only seconds ago, a meltran woman named Hira Romi.

"Mentally I take it not so much," Malanius said snidely, and turned back to the doctor.

The formerly calm doctor now seemed to have a building headache, as if she had suddenly been reminded she had one. "No," she answered with a hint of irritation. Malanius turned back to observe Hira, now staring the guards down with a growl. "She has grown increasingly unstable and violent the longer she's been kept here. She hasn't tried to escape, but incidents like this are becoming more and more common."

"Have you tried soothing music?" Malanius asked. This drew Hira's gaze, the warrior now seeming to recognize that Malanius and Canaria were there discussing her. Dark blue eyes told him she was not pleased by this.

"We've tried everything up to and including our psychiatrist specializing in uncultured zentradi. The only thing that doesn't make her worse are military documentaries. We even showed her that one about Sheryl Nome," she chuckled briefly at some inside joke, but quickly returned to her serious attitude, "Our psychiatrist's professional opinion is that she is exhibiting signs of depression common of a defeated warrior suddenly exposed to culture, but she is not responding well at all to much any cultural exposure, which we would normally expect to offer a distraction from such feelings."

"Do we have any theory as to why?"

"Doctor Pehlon noted an unusual attachment to her unit from talking to her, a certain camaraderie. From what Miss Romi has told us it was a small and tight-knit unit, but from your report it sounds like most of them were KIA in the same engagement she was captured in. She may be in mourning."

"Interesting," Malanius murmured as he watched Hira in contemplation. Hira had by now pulled her gaze away with an air of rejection. She tried to return to her room only to be stopped by the guards with a firm grip on her shoulder. One held his hand out for the syringe still in Hira's hand. Her face tensed with anger.

This place, a place of clean, peace, and tranquility, was not for Hira. This was not a place of war, or for a warrior that did not desire rest. These were unfamiliar surroundings to her, and for her to be exposed to this when she had already lost so much would serve to tell her only that all she knew was now dead. He could understand how she felt, even sympathize more than Hira would ever know. All of this was simply too much for her right now. She needed something she could relate to.

Canaria went on while Malanius thought this over. He caught most of what she said, "I don't know what to do with her. The only place I have for her at this point is the psychiatric ward, but I have this feeling it will only do more harm than good."

"Put her under my care then," Malanius suggested, turning back to face the doctor properly, "The military's, that is. Everyone has their own unique personalities and preferences. Instead of civilian culture, perhaps we should expose her to military culture. It would not be as far removed from what she knows."

Canaria hesitated, "Risky, but I could see it working in her case. I have no medical reason to keep her here, so the decision is yours. Are you sure about it?"

"I am," Malanius nodded.

On cue, a commotion from behind him in the form of grunts, thuds, and crashes, the tell tale signs of a fight. By the time Malanius turned around to look again one guard was already on the ground curled in pain, the other was fumbling with the syringe while Hira, a blur of motion, swept his legs out from under him with her own. He crashed to the ground with a cry of pain, while Hira simply spun back to her feet in the epitome of casual. She shook her head at the downed guards and turned and walked back into her room without a word or a syringe.

Canaria repeated, "You _sure _about it?"

"Let us just have it done sooner rather than later," Malanius replied.

The last guard to go down, got back to his feet with fury in his eyes and a baton in his hand, and immediately charged into the room with the sounds of violence erupting. Malanius heard Canaria take a hurried step forward in concern, but she hardly had a chance to do that much before that same guard flew out the room with his back on an empty cart. It crashed into the opposite wall and overturned on top of him. His own baton soon followed him, hurled from the room and striking him in the head as the poor man struggled to right himself in delirium. With that impact, the man had had enough, and collapsed.

The other guard, still clutching his arm, cursed and grabbed his radio, grunting painfully into it. "Back up, need back up at room 477!"

Almost immediately security officers jumped into the corridor from everywhere at once and rushed toward the room in question.

Malanius raised his one good brow as Canaria rushed past him to defuse the situation. "Preferably immediately," he added wryly.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Hangar Deck, <strong>_**Macross Quarter  
><strong>_**Landing Bay, New Frontier  
>1330<strong>_

Scant hours later, Hira Romi stood in military fatigues on the hangar deck of the _Macross Quarter _being introduced to a lineup of new initiates. A fit man with unkempt facial hair who had introduced himself to her as Ozma Lee presented her, "Cadets, this is Hira Romi, she will be joining our training for today. Don't treat her any differently than any other cadet, she isn't here to judge you, and she might even learn a thing or two from you."

_An optimistic prediction by the looks of them, _Hira thought to herself, her dark blue eyes snapping to each of them in turn for a quick assessment. She herself was by no means old for a warrior, but all of the pilots looked both younger and greener than she was. Some looked nervous, others had a haughty air of cool arrogance around them, suggesting that they were soldiers who had seen exactly an ounce of combat, survived, and thought that made them aces. Only one, maybe two, looked seasoned enough to be respectable.

Her eyes lingered longer on one face in particular, a woman with long, strawberry-blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. Unlike the others, she seemed to intentionally avoid her gaze. She looked somehow familiar.

Ozma continued, "She will hold a rank equivalent to cadet for this, equal to each of your own, so don't get any ideas. Training for today will be with real Valkyries and fake ammunition. I expect everyone to be ready for launch in twenty minutes. Dismissed."

The line filed out quickly, and the woman's face became lost to the crowd. Ozma turned to regard her, and Hira returned the gesture, forgetting the woman for the time being. Ozma signaled over to one side for another to approach and began without missing a beat, "Romi, we have prepared a Queadluun-Rhea for your use. It is similar to the Queadluun-Raus you have flown before." He then nodded to the approaching individual. Her eyes glanced over to look upon him, a tall, skinny but fit male with long, blue hair, and a uniquely flawless face, despite eyes that glared with challenge and the season of a veteran. "This is Alto Saotome, he will be overseeing your training. You've met him before under different circumstances."

Hira raised a brow and pursed her lips in curiosity at this Alto's courage. Alto gave her the distinct impression that he was ready to take her down at a moment's notice. "I do not recognize him," she said with indifference.

"He was in a Valkyrie at the time. Perhaps you'll recognize it." Hira broke her gaze from Alto to follow Ozma's own gaze, where she came upon a gleaming white fighter.

This she recognized immediately, and the realization quite entertained her. She looked back sharply at Alto, feeling a smirk coming on. "You are the warrior who flew the white one?"

"_Hai, _that would be me," Alto said. A fleeting thought on why the translator hadn't translated his first word properly was discarded. She implied the meaning easy enough as "Yes".

"Interesting," Hira said. "An honor to meet you then, Alto." Her respect he had already earned. It was not often that Hira was defeated, but then so often did defeat mean death to a zentradi. She somehow always ended up surviving anyway. For her, defeat had become a setback, nothing more, at least that's what she told herself. Still, she did not enjoy seeing more worthy warriors die in the same circumstances. Laela, certainly, had deserved to live more than she did.

"Your escort will take you to the macronization chamber."

With all the military professionalism around, Hira had nearly forgotten about the two well-armed guards at her back. She had sort of grown too accustomed to guards following her wherever she went to pay them any notice. She watched Alto for a long moment, but his gaze never backed down, and she considered what he had done in the battle before.

"Actually, if I may ask permission to make a special request, sir?" Hira asked to Ozma.

"Granted," Ozma said, not seemingly too surprised.

"I request to be assigned a Valkyrie for this training, sir."

She could see Ozma's eyes narrow out of the corner of her eye, but her eyes were fixed on Alto, and Alto was quite clearly surprised by this request. "A Valkyrie? Why?" Alto asked.

"I have flown Queadluun-Raus for a very long time, Alto, and I know of what has transpired since you miclones ventured beyond your planetary confines. I want to know what makes these Valkyries so special first-hand."

Ozma gave it some consideration then reluctantly agreed, "Very well. We'll provide you with a VF-25A. Alto will be your co-pilot."

"What_?_!" Alto asked of Ozma in shock. The look on his face only amused her further, as did the frown on Ozma's face when Alto looked at him. She would have looked amused, too, but confusion overrode that.

"Co-pilot?" Hira asked, puzzled.

"Valkyries can carry two, but the back seat is not often used."

"I see," Hira replied.

"You will be escorted to get your gear." He looked to the guards past her, "Take her to the aft locker room."

Hira glanced to the guards for a direction, which they provided with a pointed finger, and she started that way with a final glance at Alto. Despite his attempts to make his following conversation with Ozma look cordial she could see his teeth were grit, though over the noise of the hangar deck she could not hear the low tones of the discussion. Something about this arrangement bothered him severely now. She wondered for a time just how undisciplined these miclones really were, if maybe it was all merely on the surface, and deep down it was the pit of chaos she believed it to be. She supposed it hardly mattered right now, she just wanted to get out there again, and enduring these miclones was, at least, bearable.

During her thoughts she was brought to the back of the hangar deck, a short ways down a corridor and into a storage room of some sort. One of the guards, a young man with dusky hair, opened up a large locker which contained a lineup of dozens of hanging flight suits.

He sorted through the flight suits while he cast glances to her, "Uh, these are the flight suits we have, they're arranged from small to large with a few variations for... body..." his eyes fell from hers, "... shape." The second guard suddenly elbowed him, and the dusky-haired one took a step back and again regarded her in the eye. _Curious, perhaps looking down was a sign of disrespect, _Hira thought to herself. He cleared his throat, "Feel free to try them on and pick one that suits you. Helmets and the rest of the gear you'll need are in the next locker."

Without a word of acknowledgment Hira immediately set about removing her fatigues. The young man stood there staring strangely for a couple of seconds before the other guard suddenly grabbed him forcibly by the arm and dragged him off. She paused to watch them go with bemusement. _Surely they should stay and watch their prisoner, why leave the room? _she pondered as she tossed her pants somewhere out of the way. _Another breakdown in discipline_, she decided.

The sizes of the flight suits were a complex affair. It took one size trying to realize that one set must be for the male miclones. These seemed curiously simple compared to the female sizes, a complicated set of various measurements for various figures. She was not surprised, that was how it was in her fleet as well. Well-fitted outfits were practical and effective. Ill-fitting outfits compromised everything from mobility to G-endurance and body protection. Unfortunately she did not understand the miclone's measuring protocols, and so had to guesstimate at the correctly fitted uniform for her.

It was just after rejecting her third trial when she heard Alto at the door. "Is she still in there?" his voice echoed in as he spoke to the guards.

Some mumbling gave him his response.

Alto sighed and called into the room, "Hira, we don't have a lot of time."

Hira watched the corner of the lockers, around which Alto's voice came, expecting him to appear from around it at any moment. "Do you expect me to go out there with a non-fitting flight suit?"

"No," Alto replied, "Just work quickly."

Alto's voice hadn't moved, and Hira frowned, it was clear he was doing the same thing as the guards. True there wasn't anywhere for her to go, but they surely must not trust her completely if they left guards toting assault rifles with her. She certainly hadn't given them much reason to trust her.

Still, she could accept that the low-ranking and green security guards would make blunders like this, but for Alto, the very pilot who shot her down, to do the same thing was... insulting. "I am disappointed in you," Hira called back, her frown deepening.

"What?" Alto asked in confusion.

"You are supposed to be watching me, and here I see you doing the same thing as those foolish guards, staying out of eyesight. With your experience I expected better."

Alto's response was hesitant, and came with a sound of frustration, "You're dressing! I can still hear you just fine!"

"Watching and listening are not exclusive acts. All you are doing is intentionally giving yourself a tactical disadvantage. What if I came around wanting to get even with you, hmm?" Hira asked, her tone serious.

"This isn't about tactics!"

"_Everything_ is about tactics. You are young so I can overlook this lapse of tactical judgment, so long as you get in here and do your job!"

Alto sighed, growing increasingly annoyed, but was acquiescent, "Are you decent?"

Hira blinked in puzzlement as she hung the previous flight suit back up. What an odd way to phrase a question on how she felt. "... Yes?" she offered uncertainly.

"Fine," Alto said, and a moment later he rounded the corner, and his face immediately contorted with shock and some sort of gurgly sound from his throat. He shut his eyes and turned around sharply. Her confusion only increased.

"What?" she asked.

"I thought you said you were decent!"

"Well... that is... how I feel," she answered again. "You still are not looking at me."

"Would you just pick a flight suit and put it on already!" Alto shouted.

She sighed in annoyance and turned back to the locker. She resumed her tugs at the material to find one that seemed fitting enough while puzzling over Alto's reaction. "Is that what you meant by decent?"

"Yes!" Alto said through grit teeth.

"I fail to see how that has anything to do with being decent," Hira shook her head, uncomprehending of this backwards notion of language these miclones had. Maybe her translator was damaged.

Suddenly a female voice called from around the corner, "Alto, what's all the commotion in-" The voice rounded the corner and the strawberry-blond from the hangar deck appeared. The blue eyes turned sharply from Alto to Hira, which is where her sentence caught. "Whoa," and just as sharply she burst into a giggle as she turned her head to one side to regard Alto, "Did you walk in on her, Alto?" Alto gave an annoyed grunt, and the woman giggled again, "You have such a cute blush."

"It's not funny, Sheryl!" Alto said back to her. Hira watched the exchange with ever growing curiosity. "Could you hurry it up, Hira?"

Hira pulled her gaze away to sort through the flight suits again, "I do not understand your measurements, I cannot make this go any faster."

Sheryl cut off her giggles, "Here, let me help." Hira's gaze shot up as Sheryl stepped forward, watching Sheryl step forward and look her in the eye. "Which one did you just try on?"

Hira blinked, and hesitantly pointed one out. "This one." Sheryl's behavior was surprising for someone Hira assumed to be the most green, and yet she was the most casual miclone she had yet met.

Sheryl briefly looked at a small set of miclone writing on the inside collar. "And how did it feel?"

"It was too tight around the chest."

Sheryl looked over Hira with a raised eyebrow, then commented in a low tone, "I can see why..." She skimmed over a few flight suits, picked one out, and handed it to her. "Try this one."

Hira took the offered flight suit and started to slip into it. As small a gesture as it seemed, Hira gained a new respect for the miclones from Sheryl's simple act, showing the initiative to get the job done and help others where there was trouble. She also did not insist in stupid tactical blunders, at least not that Hira had detected so far.

In fact, she reminded her of someone she used to know.

Hira adjusted the flight suit slightly and flexed around in it, testing it out for mobility.

"Well?" Sheryl asked.

Hira considered for a moment, then nodded, "This will work."

Sheryl smiled, "Good. See you in the air!" And with that, Sheryl turned and left with a lingering glance and a wink at Alto. Alto's head gave the barest nudged as if he'd returned the glance himself.

Hira grabbed the rest of the gear she would need. Or more so Alto finally turned around and helped her out in getting it. Perhaps there was hope for him yet if the cadet's actions shamed him so. Still, he seemed tense, even as they made their way back to the hangar deck. As they walked, she dared to ask, "Sir, do you find something about this arrangement to be disagreeable?"

Alto frowned, "It's nothing."

Hira narrowed her eyes at him, as far a line of questioning as she was willing to take given the circumstances. It was enough though, and Alto continued. "Flying co-pilot isn't flying at all. I had expected I would at least be able to fly my own plane for this."

"Ah," Hira said. "But we will be airborne?"

"We'll be in the air, but you'll be the one doing all the flying. I'll just be a passenger."

The second seat on the Valkyries suddenly made sense to Hira. Their Valkyries must have an additional purpose as a rapid transit vehicle for important personnel. A commander could easily move from ship to ship like this. Surely that was the purpose. Still, the back seat was hardly a place for a line soldier. "I understand."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Towering Dark Forest<br>New Frontier  
>1445<strong>_

The Radar Warning Receiver of SMS029 blared intermittently for Sheryl Nome's attention as she dodged her fighter between trees the size of skyscrapers in GERWALK mode. Tracers shot past her fighter in tight bursts. She stamped the pedals back and forth violently to throw the exhaust nozzles in the legs every which way in her attempts to evade. The trees flew by faster and faster, and still her pursuer was right on her tail, stealing shots at her between the tree trunks. There was very little undergrowth or branches to provide any other sort of extra cover. Light had a difficult time penetrating the thick canopy above, leaving an eerie world beneath cloaked in shadow and fog only periodically broken by a shaft of white light where the leaf coverage thinned.

Sheryl's exhaust plumes burned away the fog with its wake. She pushed her speed harder and harder in an attempt to get away, but in doing so the trees came at her faster and faster. Her nerves snapped and she pulled up sharply and tweaked a hat switch on the left-hand controls. In an instant the legs snapped back in a transformation to fighter mode, the engines burst to life at full power, and the Valkryie shot through the canopy in an explosion of leaves and twigs into the bright, sunlit sky above. She glanced behind her, but didn't see her pursuer give chase.

"Red-Four, mind the ceiling, fifteen hundred feet," Alto's voice reminded her over the comms.

"That's hardly any room to maneuver!" Sheryl complained.

"If you want me to rule you dead by triple-A then by all means keep flying up there. You only get one warning."

Sheryl grit her teeth and pushed her plane back down closer to the treeline and started circling slowly over the forest. Alto was being such a pain in the ass as a combat flight instructor, but that was probably a prerequisite of the job. On her sensors nothing came up even as she scanned the forest below. The forest canopy was masking visuals and heat signatures, and even the radar was having a hard time picking out anything off the ground, in part due to its limited field of view. The RWR wasn't going off either, and she started to calm down.

"You're wearing a bullseye up there, Sheryl," Alto added.

"I'm trying to find her, Alto, now stop back seat-" A sharp impact suddenly slapped the nose of her Valkyrie on the canopy's right side, and Sheryl's line turned into a shriek. She saw now a massive splatter of green paint smeared over half that side of her canopy. Her jaw dropped in disbelief as her HUD updated with "Simulated Status: Dead".

"Told you."

"If you hadn't distracted me-!" Sheryl shouted back in annoyance.

Off Sheryl's right side, a VF-25 burst out of the canopy in battroid mode, two-toned in white and gray with cold blue trim, the barrel of its gunpod still smoking from its recent firing. "Sweet, now I get to tell my sister's daughter I shot down her favorite idol," Ice Queen said over the radio. IFF painted her as Blue-Three.

"Minor setback, you can be sure it won't happen twice!" Sheryl retorted.

"Ice Queen! You still have a mission and hostiles in the operational area! Get on it!" Alto growled, "Fairy, get to twenty-two angels, assume station keeping, and observe the rest of this part of the exercise."

"Yes, sir!" Ice Queen said, then transformed to fighter mode and zipped off. With a furrowed brow, Sheryl started her ascent.

* * *

><p><em><strong>18,000 feet over Dark Tower Forest<br>New Frontier  
>1448<strong>_

Alto Saotome leaned into the back seat of SMS037 with a sigh. The displays and HUD around him showed a stream of data and readouts from the simulated battle being waged below.

"She is not very good, is she?" the deep, feminine voice in front of him asked. For a moment he had almost forgotten that he had a meltran who had just last week been trying to kill him as his pilot, slowly circling him around the battlefield at eighteen thousand feet, making her own observations with her only comments until now being head shaking and chuckles.

"Ice Queen is one of the best in the group, especially in a dogfight, but..." Alto hesitated, "Yeah. Sheryl needs a lot of work."

"Why not eliminate her from consideration?" Hira followed up.

"It's still early in the training, and besides, it's what she wants," Alto shrugged, "And she's stubborn enough to keep trying."

"She is stubborn enough to get herself killed," Hira observed with a slight venom, then her voice fell to a softer tone, "She reminds me of my old commander, Laela. Stubborn, prideful, yet with an odd... sort of leadership quality."

"I'll give her charisma," Alto filled in.

"What is that?" Hira asked.

"Never mind," Alto said, "You were saying?"

Hira hesitated a moment before continuing, "Laela was a good soldier, a good commander. I fought with her every battle of her unfortunately short career. She just would not retreat, not until it was too late."

"What happened to her?" Alto asked.

"You killed her."

Alto grimaced, then looked away, feeling a sudden sadness. "Sorry."

Hira shrugged, "Mistakes happen, one can only hope to live to learn from them. I am assuming it was you who killed her, she went down after I did and she was on the ship with me, along with Nwinthe. I am told there were no other survivors of the boarding action." Hira paused. "I hope she fought well."

Alto's mind pulled him back to that day as much as he wished it wouldn't. The flash of lasers and missiles, Sheryl in danger, the hard fighting in close quarters. He had no idea which meltran was which, but he gave an answer as best he could. "Yeah," Alto said gently, "They both fought well."

Hira gave only a slow nod. "I almost killed your Sheryl twice that day."

Alto's heart stabbed a pang. "I know..." Alto sighed, then he picked his head up, "Wait, how did you know it was Sheryl?"

"I recognized her Valkyrie, and that awkward combat style. She flies a bit like you do, though with much less grace and skill." She looked back at him over her shoulder, "I understand if you wanted to keep that from me, but do not worry yourself over confirming it to me, it was all too obvious."

Alto frowned heavily. He still felt uncomfortable, but a certain instinct in him leaped forward, and his voice became stern, "Is it going to be a problem?"

Hira gave an amused chortle. "No, none at all," she paused and then added, "I do have one question however. Why was she late to the fight?"

"What?"

"When you first engaged. I was tracking the rest of your unit and their movements and you were all together originally, but Sheryl came much later, and quite haphazardly. I was curious if there was a reason for it."

"I told her to stay out of it," Alto said. He glanced over the readouts of the mock battle below hoping for a distraction from the topic at hand, but it could not distract his mind from the lingering memories.

"Hm," Hira grunted, "I presume you changed your mind after your drone went down."

"No, I didn't," Alto replied.

Hira was silent for a moment before murmuring, "Interesting." Then she fell silent, something Alto was sort of grateful for.

* * *

><p><em><strong>22,000 feet over Dark Tower Forest<br>New Frontier  
>1457<strong>_

The mock fight continued beneath Sheryl Nome's Valkyrie seen as dots of purple zipping in and out from under the forest canopy appearing and disappearing like fireflies. Sheryl watched from over the side of her fighter as she slowly circled. Inexplicably, her gaze was drawn to a much closer point, a Messiah circling much as she was just a few thousand feet below her. The helmet sights reacted to her gaze and painted an expanded information box when her gaze fell upon it, giving a full accounting of vital numbers and its IFF, Skull-Four, Alto's code.

She sighed, and in a rare moment felt disappointed in herself, and sadness came out of it. It was different from normal, as she usually felt somehow angry at such circumstances, angry at herself for messing up or just not knowing better. Mistakes like that could be costly in show business, and she made sure they never happened twice, even if it wasn't her own fault. It was part of her professionalism.

Having Alto there just made everything feel more personal.

A beep signaled a communications channel being opened, and a holographic window opened. Much to Sheryl's surprise, it was Ice Queen, and on a private channel. "Hey, Fairy, want a rematch?" she asked with a cold sort of mischievousness.

"Huh?" Sheryl said back.

"We've got one more run before we're back to mom, and you know this combat area Princess designated is huge. Pretty easy for two people to run off together and have a little... private party."

Sheryl's face twisted with unease, "You're either suggesting a duel or-"

"I'm suggesting a duel," Rachel interrupted sharply with a frown.

Sheryl's face relaxed, but her brow went flat, "I don't have anything to prove to you, Rachel."

"Hey, I beat you once. If you're serious about flying, you'll take me up on this. An ace has to meet anyone, anywhere, anytime, and beat them down. I don't expect you'll win this time either, but maybe this time you can avoid being _completely_ shut down."

Sheryl rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Unless you're chicken," Ice Queen added.

"I don't know what you have against me, Rachel, but I'm not going to satisfy it with a duel. I am going to be supporting my team to the best of my abilities like a professional soldier should, not hunting for personal glory."

"Oh, that's rich, a lecture on personal glory from Sheryl freaking Nome!" Ice Queen retorted, "I wonder how many roadies you fired personally." Sheryl's eye twitched as she suppressed a wince. "Or how many careers you shut down because they were simply in your way."

"I never shut any one down!" Sheryl snapped, "Everyone had their fair shot, and I let them have it!"

"Was that before or after you blew away Minmei's and Fire Bomber's sales records?"

Sheryl's teeth clenched as she felt anger seep up again. She resolved to end this quickly and as diplomatically as she could manage under the circumstances. "Whatever grudge you have against me is not going to be resolved with a fight. I'm going to stay professional, work hard, and work _together_ with my team, which is the same way I got to the top in music," Sheryl said, "Not by indulging in petty selfishness."

"Fine!" Ice Queen snapped back, "Just keep your high horse to yourself when I kick the rest of your team's collective ass again."

Rachel cut the link right after, leaving Sheryl to sigh and turn her attention back to her surroundings. Something deep in her wondered if maybe she should have taken her up on it. Maybe she could have gotten a little respect out of it at least, and she was starting to feel like she really could use some from her fellow pilots. She would just have to do her best for the last heat.


End file.
